Brendan Manley

Yellowcard Lift A Sail There’s been seemingly constant heartache and upheaval in the Yellowcard camp since 2012’s Southern Air, from violinist Sean Mackin’s battle with thyroid cancer to the departure of drummer and founding member Longineu “LP” Parsons, to the tragic 2013 snowboarding accident that left vocalist/guitarist Ryan Key’s wife Alyona Alekhina paralyzed from the […]

Four Year Strong Go Down In History EP Four Year Strong fans will breathe a collective sigh of relief when they get their mitts on Go Down In History, the latest from the Worcester, Massachusetts, popcore beard-punks since  2011's lukewarm arena-rock experiment, In Some Way, Shape Or Form. Seconds into the chugging onslaught that announces opening […]

Aaron West And The Roaring Twenties We Don’t Have Each Other Like a great novel, it’s hard to imagine that the fictitious characters who populate We Don’t Have Each Other—the debut full-length by Dan “Soupy” Campbell’s solo project Aaron West And The Roaring Twenties—don’t actually exist in the real world, and aren’t carrying on where […]

The Word Alive REAL. It takes serious swagger to be a modern metalcore/post-hardcore band who drop a record called REAL.—a musical shot across the collective bow of fellow contenders and also-rans alike—and Phoenix quintet the Word Alive back up the insinuation with a shock-and-awe barrage of blast beats, blazing guitars and perhaps most crucially, a […]

Me First And The Gimme Gimmes Are We Not Men? We Are Diva! The latest by punk-cover supergroup Me First And The Gimme Gimmes gives decades’ worth of hits by the ladies (and, um, Boy George) the full Me First treatment, and for once, singing along to said tunes isn’t a source of shame and […]

Fireworks Oh, Common Life It’s been beyond impressive to watch Fireworks evolve over the last eight years from an earnest Midwestern pop-punk outfit inspired by New Found Glory and the Movielife to the band who created their latest, Oh, Common Life, an album that brilliantly straddles the group’s roots while pushing ahead into bold new territory. […]

Title Fight Spring Songs EP Don’t let the name fool you: Spring Songs is definitely not a collection of cheery toe-tappers from the usually gloomy Kingston, Pennsylvania, four-piece. Nope, the plodding four-track EP carries on right where 2012’s Floral Green left off, exploring more of the sludgy, ruminating neo-grunge and Jawbreaker-esque ’90s punk that’s become […]

The Swellers The Light Under Closed Doors The Swellers thrive on poetic desperation; a kind of underlying sadness and inner tension, deceptively presented within a seemingly sweet pop-punk melody. It’s what fueled the Michigan quartet’s “Rust Belt lullabies” on 2009’s dazzling Ups And Downsizing, and it also drives the band’s latest, The Light Under Closed […]

Sainthood Reps Headswell On the surface, you can’t help but notice the obvious influence fellow Long Islanders Brand New have had on Sainthood Reps; after all, SR feature BN touring member Derrick Sherman on guitar, and both bands regularly collaborate with LI producer/creative guru Mike Sapone. That influence is apparent again on Headswell, Sainthood Reps’ […]