With a title like SUCKAPUNCH you can expect a musical slap in the face. With opening track Nice To Me, the English band immediately lives up to those expectations. Although they still sound familiar here, on their seventh album the quintet chooses to experiment with other styles, such as electronics, in addition to pop punk and post-hardcore. At times, the band sounds like
Enter Shikari, with whom
… they share a similar energy. Yet the experimentation on this record also makes sure that the sharp edges get lost sometimes, so that the band comes across as a stadium act here and there. A song like Kill The Mood, for example, sounds a lot like Imagine Dragons. The division between sharp pop punk on the one hand and (bombastic) indie rock on the other isn't quite right on SUCKAPUNCH. (JvQ)more
