A bit before Rust Belt Lights made their splash on Paper and Plastick with their debut full-length, These Are the Good Old Days, they issued this tidy four-song EP for State of Mind, Long Gone....

Long Gone... propels forward with melodic, fast pop-punk not far from the likes of contemporaries like Escape-era No Harm Done, or Nightlights. The recording here has a vague muffle about it, but the band's general tone and scope breaks through it. The small dynamics of strained vocal inflections on opener "The Comeback" go a long way to make it a little more compelling, while that bit of the Movielife's influence infects the more melodic hardcore breadth of "The Issue". Closer "The Escape" is a love letter to music, moved with a more mid-tempo, chugging fondness. I detect a hint of Jimmy Stadt in the vocal performance on that one, too.

This was a pretty decent start for Rust Belt Lights, a solid foundation that the band's more fervent fans might be inclined to check out if they somehow haven't done so already.

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Long Gone... EP