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The Pink Spiders - Sweat It Out
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Review by Tony Bonyata With such a vast influx of modern indie-rock bands out there today it's hard to remember the last time a band produced unadulterated power-pop in the vein of Cheap Trick, Shoes and Jellyfish. What makes it even cloudier is that so many bands these days, such as Blink-182, Bowling For Soup and Good Charlotte, have further blurred the lines between kiddie-punk and power-pop - making the 'real deal' even harder to distinguish today.While the Nashville band The Pink Spiders may, at first, seem to have much in common with many of the bands that they've opened for on their tours, such as Fall Out Boy, Good Charlotte, 30 Seconds To Mars and Kill Hannah, on their third full length release entitled Sweat It Out the quartet actually sound closer to the power pop bands from the '70s that were originally influenced by both '60s British Invasion groups and American garage bands, than the second rate offspring that followed in the prepubescent post-punk wake of Green Day in the '90s. The band chose an appropriate title for this effort as it's a non-stop, high-energy album filled with spirited hard rockers ("Gimme Chemicals," "Stranglehold" and the pounding "Trust No One") as well as sweetly laced pop (such as the opener "Busy Signals" which sounds like The New Pornographers on a weekend sugar bender). While they never completely slow down enough to turn in the dreaded arena rock power-ballad (even if "Don't Wait For Me" comes dangerously close) they take a break from pumping iron for the jaunty rhythm on "Settling For You" and the piano-driven melodic pop of "Seventeen Candles." While indie hipsters will avoid this stuff like the plague, youngsters looking for some edgy melodic-driven rock as well older music fans hankering for nostalgic power-pop need look no further than The Pink Spiders' Sweat It Out. |