After listening to Lifetime and Texas is the Reason the last two days I’ve begun to lament the lack of really good music that’s come out lately.
Of course I’ve always done this. I’ve regretted how all the bands I listened to when I was in 8th grade or my freshman year broke up (Finch*, Something Corporate, The Movielife, just about anyone else signed to Drive-Thru Records circa 2002), and how no one makes music like that anymore, but never has it really hit me like this.
It was always a “damn somebody should make more music like this,” not an urgent I-NEED-TO-START-A-BAND-AND-BRING-THIS-SCENE-BACK feeling. That’s what makes people still care about bands like this — that sense of urgency and longing for a time that’s gone by. For some it’s Led Zeppelin or The Beatles, to me, it’s all the aforementioned bands.
After listening to Texas is the Reason you can hear, loud and clear, the imprint the band made on Long Island outfits Brand New and Taking Back Sunday, but dirtier, but nevertheless relevant, vocals.
As for Lifetime, if you’ve ever read about a New Brunswick, NJ basement show and immediately wanted to have one, you have these guys to thank.
It really hit me, today especially, that everyone wants to make heavier and heavier music (see: Metalcore), or keep up the Hardcore, and (sometimes) mix in some New Found Glory-style pop-punk (even though NFG’s new stuff has very strong Hardcore undertones), so the likelihood of these type of bands coming back is almost nonexistent, but I hope anyway…
*I know Finch got back together. They’ve even got an EP coming out next summer (I hope it’s What it is to Burn Finch and not Say Hello to Sunshine Finch, not that SHtS was bad, it just wasn’t Finch)!
