If you’re not already aware, pop punk is a thing we love here at Punktastic, but we also know it’s a bit saccharine for some. Interestingly, those people are sometimes also the people who can be seen singing Fall Out Boy at the top of their voices at a club after five Jaegerbombs and mysteriously know all the words, so y’know… this new album from Direct Hit! should have just enough grit for the latter group and still be pop-y enough to get the rest of us shouting at the impending grey English clouds telling them to do one.
Because ‘Brainless God’ sums up exactly what pop-punk should be, and should always have been; there’s plenty of gritty, shouty, punky moments and (shock horror) there’s even some screaming. Direct Hit! are apparently very good at recognising what vocal style works well. The gnarlier bits like in ‘The Word Is Ending (No One Cares)’ and the short-but-sour ‘We’re Fucked’ are fronted with some throat-ruining screams, in places there are Four Year Strong-esque
shouting but still singing, and the clean vocals don’t land a million miles from Blink 182’s Mark Hoppus. The instrumentation is a brilliant mix of punk rhythms and throwdowns that are spliced with ludicrously upbeat chord sequences and splashy cymbals.
To be honest, even though there’s clearly a lot in this album that pop punk haters will clearly despise, we cannot imagine what sort of monster would not like this album when it comes down to it. The strongly American style of singing and the irrepressible bounciness could eventually get on your nerves and the 14 year old girls that want to steal Alex Gaskarth’s hair might turn their nose up at the punk sections, but the two different aspects are so well intertwined that you can learn to look past each part as on its own and appreciate that this album is a well-written, well-executed piece of musical brilliance. This whole “let’s mix punk and pop rock” thing might catch on you know.