I recall seeing The Fire Still Burns play with Bold at their first reunion show circa early 2005. At the time, I was surely perplexed how this unknown band (at least to me) got on such a killer show. After watching their set and seeing the 6 kids who were really into it, I basically wrote off the band. The music didn’t grab me; I didn’t feel the need to hear more.
Fast forward 6 months or so. I get a CDep in the mail. Straight from Invisible Youth PR. I had received the follow up to their demo. 6 fresh tracks recorded at the Big Blue Meenie studios. It’s hard to mess up that track record.
I popped in the cd and was really impressed with the first track. The second track too. It was like taking Good Riddance, adding Lifetime, and heaping on a ton of rock n roll soul. Imagine if The Enkindels (not Enkindel, but rather The Enkindels) hadn’t broken up and released an EP in 2005. This is probably what it would have sounded like. My only beef is that the third through sixth song sound like rehashes of the first two songs. I understand that is how punk rock goes, but if I’m listening to something with pop, it better have hooks. I don’t think I can honestly tell the difference between the tracks, even after a few listens.
Regardless, the next time I get the chance to see this outfit, I’ll be paying more attention. I may not be the guy in the front row singing along SUPER loudly, but I’ll be paying attention.