Review: The Backup Plan

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The Backup Plan
“Dearest Whomever…”
(New Day Rising)

There’s a lot to like about The Backup Plan.  I mean, they play really fast, really clean power-punk, sort of like Good Riddance, only most of their songs are about girls.  The Backup Plan employ the growingly popular “one guys screams and one guy sings” technique to quite a bit of success, as the tortured, screaming vocals carry so much venom on tracks such as, “I Broke Your Heart and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt” and “Even the Mona Lisa is Falling Apart”, you’ll be calling the Poison Control Center.  The relentlessly savage vocals get a bit stale by track five, as the belligerent assault seems to be a little unwavering in its intensity.

While some of the elder statesmen of the genre have managed to incorporate a little variety into their acts, The Backup Plan are happily content to pound their life away in a deafening barrage of heavy hooks.  Lyrically, TBP are inventively cruel, coming up with such gems as, “We are dial tone hesitation, we are the wayward hearts, death wishes and fresh stitches won’t get you home tonight,” and “I’ve been doing a bad impression of myself and you’re so inventive when you’re got a tale to tell.”  You’ll dig it, I swear.