State Champs
Kings of the New Age

The champs return with a new album proclaiming themselves kings of the new age, if you make it a cartoon handful of albums why not claim greatness? But are they really the kings? I noticed someone comparing them with Stand Atlantic, one of my favourite bands, if they are similar to them they must be great. It looks skate punk if you look at the art, I recall their previous album as a catchy and pretty good pop-punk album. So, what about this new one?

It is catchy pop-rock music with some DIY-punk attitudes, a typical singer of the pop punk style with good attitude and cockiness. It sounds quite youthful, hardly unique or original but I think they are rather going for attitude than for originality. It is well-produced, relatively varied with decent depth, the singer is good. They have a few guest appearances that spices it up and adds variation as well, good thing.

Anyone into the pop punk style should like this one, it presses the right buttons and it is great. The songs are always accessible, catchy and good, there is a lot of hit potential here. I like the opener and Act Like That most, but there is not a single distinguishable weakness on the album. The only thing negative might be that the lack of fresh original ideas can be detrimental for their chances to stand out from the masses, but whoever gets this album will like it, despite the fact that it is far from the greatest pop-punk album this year.

This is probably the best album by State Champs so far, I don’t want to proclaim them kings over anything, but Kings of the New Age is a great album that is well worth checking out.

HHHHHHH