MxPx
Panic

THE REVIEW

The milk and coffee music is not made of just Giorni Verdi, Addizioni e Somme and Cartellini Gialli, but there are many other bands that, although not enjoying excessive visibility, still deserve to be brought to the public's attention.

MxPx is a pop/punk rock band from Bremerton, Washington, formed in 1992. The original name of the band was Magnifield Place, which was changed to the catchier MxPx. There are several stories and versions about this change, but let's move on due to space constraints.

The line-up consists of Mike Herrera on vocals and bass, Tom Wisniewski on guitar, and Yury Riley on guitar. This is the seventh studio album, as well as the first with the new label SideOne Dummy Records. Recently, the band changed labels again to record their latest studio album "Secret Weapon," released last year.

The CD consists of fourteen very catchy tracks in the vein of pop-punk, although there are a few harder moments.

It starts with the opener "The darkest places," a very fast-paced and beautiful punk rock song. It continues with the more melodic "Young and depressed," but especially "Heard that sound," which, although simple pop-punk, has a truly well-crafted melody. Position four for "Cold streets" which features a drum and guitar intro and has excellent riffs and good speed. We arrive at "The story," the best on the CD in my opinion, together with "The darkest places," where the guitars get heavy and create an inviting sound for the listener. After these energetic first tracks, we relax a bit with the rock ballad with a solo "Wrecking hotel rooms" featuring vocals by Mark Hoppus, former Blink-182 and current bassist and member of Angels And Airwaves.

If the first part of the CD was intense, the second continues on this path, but with some tracks that are at times different from each other. The most experimental track is "Late again," with its unusual country/folk swing complete with crazy guitar solos over a primarily melodic hardcore rhythmic section (Do you know Bad Religion?). This track would not have been out of place on the album "Before Everything And After."

Other songs worth mentioning in this second part of the album are the emotional "Grey sky turn blue," the sweet "Waiting for the world to end," and the hardcore verve of "Get out me out" with good solos and above-average aggressiveness. The others follow the classic pop-punk style but are less noticeable compared to the others. While "This weekend" is tasked with bidding us farewell with its melody and classic choruses.

In conclusion, it is a good album, well-made, nice and engaging, managing to convincingly transition from melodic segments to faster and more energetic parts in their perfect style. And anyway, it's better to have an album like this than the latest releases from 2005 by bands claiming to do melodic hardcore (but at times end up being tremendously cloying and syrupy, moving away from punk) like Lagwagon and No Use For A Name.