“i’m wasted and i’m young, so what? so what?”
From the first pop guitar chords you understand Blue Epic’s First Album: fast, poppy, ridiculously catchy, and extremely delicious. The licks, the descending down-tempo drumbeats, the soaring vocals, and the stutter-step, attention-grabbing choruses all demand that you pull out the air guitar.
In the interest of full disclosure, I’ve been holding on to this album for nearly a year now, unsure whether to write about it. At first, I thought it was too poppy. But every time it came up on my iPod’s shuffle, I turned the volume up. It’s just too much fun not to share this with other people.
From the pounding opener, “So What,” right into the begging-for-a-roadtrip “Fast Car,” First Album makes me smile. There is, of course, the requisite ballad (“Let Me Down”), but it doesn’t turn me off or detract from the album’s overall rhythm.
I like that this CD is outside of just about any genre going on right now, especially the alternative morass that is hard for most people to sort out. (Though I try to offer as much advice in that arena as possible.) First Album could have been crap because it’s so far outside “the scene,” but it’s like fresh air in an epic blue sky. With references to Soul Asylum and Heart, influenced by the early nineties pop-rock that got washed under the grunge juggernaut (Goo Goo Dolls, Dishwalla, etc.), and hinting ever-so-suggestively at hairbands of my youth, the disc is irresistable to a child of the eighties like me.
There is no alt angst here, no hidden meanings, no retro name-checking. This is bar rock and roll, written for drinking, banging your head, and getting laid. Ah, the lost nirvana of pop-rock Jersey bands—though, of course, these guys hail from Birmingham, Alabama.
Notwithstanding their heritage, Blue Epic delivers on the power-chord promise; each song is a gem, deceptively simple and constantly rockin’. (Yes, I used the term “rockin’.”) Blue Epic is not afraid to enjoy their music, make it well, and have fun screaming it, whether with screeching guitar, thundering drums, or bloody vocals.
When was the last time music really just made you smile?