Honestly as a long time Fat Wreck Chords fan it’s sometimes not an easy life. On one hand the old bands are not delivering the sound you want to hear from them and the newer bands are just not your thing, BUT there is an exception. PEARS hit me from the first time they appeared at the label and I love all of their records and they are an insane live band. I saw them last year at Brakrock Ecofest in Belgium and the performance of the band was simply amazing. Zach Quinn is by far one of the best entertainer in punkrock.
So they released a new record a few days ago and, as expected, it’s the banger I’m used to get with a new PEARS record. It’s not a newer version of the previous record, there is something different in it, but deep inside it’s 100% the sound I’m used to when I think of PEARS.
If you listen to the opener Killing Me, you already get a bit more melodic parts then on the previous records, but also the heavy breaks PEARS are famous for. Purists may will criticize that there are more melodic parts, but for me a melodic punk enthusiast it’s just simply perfect.
Zero Wheels raises the speed of the record and you get a true punkrock song of 2020 and it all ends up in the next song Comfortable Dumb. One of my favourites of the whole record. The pure rage and aggression in that song, companied by this melodic chorus. People often criticize that the new Fat Wreck bands are just poppunkish bands, but for those people thinking that I just recommend listening to PEARS.
There is another thing PEARS are well known for and that’s the fact that they often adopt some parts of famous songs into their songs. So did they in their song Dial up. I hear a part that reminds me of Lou Bega and his Mambo No 5, a bit of Macarena and of course Chumbawamba’s Tubthumping.
If you just want to have a sneak peak into the record, I would recommend you to listen to the song Rich to Rags. But wait, that’s bullshit! You have to listen to the entire record, everything else would be just dumb.
Because if you listen to the whole record, you can also check out the song Traveling Time. A song that is hard to describe, especially if you have to put it in a context with the rest of the record, that is speedy, heavy and punk as fuck. Traveling Time is a lot, but nothing of those three things. But that makes this song and that band so great. Putting a 70ies glamrock song on that record, shows how much self confidence that band has. This is also a good point to come back to the gig at Brakrock I mentioned earlier. That day they entered the stage to the sounds of the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
I think that’s a good point to end that review. Already one of my favourites for record of the year!
– written by Martin
