Bracket / Humble Beginnings

This is probably the coolest thing I've seen this year -- a DOUBLE split CD. If you don't understand, it means that each band gets their own CD, so if one band sucks [which in this case, one certainly does], you don't have to skip past their tracks to get to the good shit. Anyways, moving on to the review: Why does Bracket have to suck so much? I don't get it. I've tried SO hard to like these guys, but first off, there's no way in hell they even know what punk is [not that I do, but regardless]. They sound like weak power-pop [is that an oxymoron?], with a tinge of country in some stuff. They contribute 7 songs to their disc, and supposedly they're all unreleased, but I'm almost positive I've heard "Shoegazer," their first song, on a comp somewhere.

Moving on, Humble Beginnings rocks, and you all need to know this. These four kids from New Jersey have so much talent it's ridiculous. They play essentially emotionally-tinged melodic hardcore. I guess if you took equal parts Avail, Get Up Kids, No Use For A Name, and Oblivion, you'll get them, maybe. It's really hard to describe, so why not just go buy something of theirs somewhere? You really won't regret it. The kids put on a super-great live show, too, as I found out last August, and they also are incredibly nice. So I guess I'm happy that they got to do this split CD because now they will get a lot more exposure being tag-teamed with Bracket, even if the aforementioned band sucks a mule's ass. Oh well, that's the beauty of the double split CD: Disc 1 doesn't ever have to be played ever again.