“From these shitty jobs and moldy houses, shitty jobs and overdoses. The fact we survive at all is kind of a surprise”
Every goddamn time I start getting away from punk rock music, due to whatever bullshit reason, a band comes along and reminds me why I loved it to begin with. I was feeling that way in 2005, when fucking out of nowhere, I heard Latterman. It was their ” No Matter Where We Go…!” record. Instantly stoked. Two years later they broke up.
Fast forward to 2010, and I was starting to feel the same way. Luckily, RVIVR came out with their full length, and it is great. Now, I know everyone in RVIVR had previously been in other bands, but I do not know most of those. I knew that it had Matt Canino in it, and was more than a little interested. I would love to have had this record in the punk house years.
This is, more or less, not too far away from the type of stuff Latterman did. Melodic punk rock with (dare I say) little twinges of emo. Falls in line with the political/personal lyric split too. I recall reading a review of this, and having said review say something about how the lyrics sounded like “a self help book.” Is this a fair judgment, sure. But, a little posi never hurt anyone.
The split male/female vocals is what makes this stand out from Latterman. Erica Freas is the other vocalist (and also the guitarist), and she really sounds prefect for this type of music. The dual vocal stands out as a strengths on a number of songs, but the best being “Cut The Cord.” Her vocals are particularly stand out on “Real Mean” and “Cold In Your Bones.”
My one minor gripe with this record is the first track. I really can never get super stoked on, basically, instrumental only punk songs. Something about that always irks me. Had this record been one track shorter, and opened with “Edge Of Living,” I would not complain.
Honestly, I would feel bad giving this a 5 out of 5, because I feel like my Latterman bias would be partly responsible for this. But, I feel like that is what this record deserves. This record was in constant rotation for about 2 months. This was just what I needed. Fucking record of the year, right here.
Buy It! (Donation based download)
RVIVR (official site – WordPress)
Team Reasonable 