Brian Shultz

The American Scene Safe For Now While the American Scene most frequently associate with young West Coast startups like the Story So Far and are releasing this full-length on the pop-punk-heavy Pure Noise Records, Safe For Now dashes away any preconceived notions. The album is an assured, confident statement with far greater musical and emotional […]

Worn In Red Banshees Worn In Red have been one of the Southeast region's best-kept secrets of the last few years. Perhaps it's because they only tour a few months out of the year, but nonetheless, they've been churning out brash, moody punk with post-hardcore angularity, emotional hardcore aggression and melodic restraint since 2007. While […]

Elway Hence My Optimism EP While Ft. Collins, Colorado, punk outfit Elway remain pretty indebted to the best of modern punk, their new EP, Hence My Optimism, is a little less one-dimensional than their 2011 full-length, Delusions. A more varied menagerie of present-day punk, this could be a brief mixtape made by your best Orgcore-loving […]

With The Punches Seams & Stitches The hardcore-influenced pop-punk field is a crowded one, and it's tough to say that With The Punches are offering much of a fresh spin as far as that style's concerned. But what they lack in originality on their debut full-length, Seams & Stitches, they make up for in sheer […]

Lions Lions To Carve Our Names Lions Lions have an arsenal of seasoned musicians in their lineup, spanning notable names from the New England scene such as Vanna, A Loss For Words and Therefore I Am. But they've struggled to hone their sound through a small handful of releases since 2008's debut mini-album Direction. While […]

Dead Ending Dead Ending EP One imagines that Dead Ending must be sort of a geek-out project for Rise Against bassist Joe Principe, Alkaline Trio drummer Derek Grant and the Bomb guitarist Jeff Dean. Veterans in their own right already, the trio team up here with Vic Bondi, who fronted seminal Chicago predecessors Articles Of […]

Stop Breathing Stop Breathing Sorry, Pavement fans. These current and ex-members of Young Livers, Glass And Ashes and the Missing 23rd are certainly not churning out ’90s slacker indie rock on their self-titled debut. Put it this way: Frontman John Crerar sounds like a cross between Good Riddance's Russ Rankin and Municipal Waste's Tony Foresta. […]

Misser Every Day I Tell Myself I’m Going To Be A Better Person The opening track of Misser’s full-length debut, the mopey, acoustic “Permanently,” surprisingly resembles something the Lawrence Arms' Brendan Kelly would compose. After that, though, Every Day I Tell Myself I'm Going To Be A Better Person settles into a style one might […]

Greys Easy Listening EP As a reviewer, the title of Greys' second EP is almost insulting. Essentially, at some point we're supposed to go, [adopts game-show-host voice] “Easy Listening? It's anything but!” All right, guys, we get it. You Torontonians are a little crazy and kinda jagged and anything but what the moniker of your […]