Like fellow Illinoisers Screeching Weasel and the Methadones, the Copyrights play that bratty "Ramones-core" style like they first came up with the idea. This is pop-punk, no two ways about it -- and it's pop-punk done damn well.

And you better believe you're not getting full, individual reviews for the separate 7"s, as neither even eclipse the nine-minute mark.

The newer of the two, 2005's Nowhere Near Chicago, contains four songs, and at least three of them are fucking catchier than [insert sexually transmitted disease of choice]. The band bury hooks in you like aged seafarers, sporting a smiling set of raw power chords and infectious, simple lines like "meathead, you're rotting out your brain" and "girl, why you screwin' around on me?" Out the mouths of most other bands I'd groan, but like their influences the Copyrights are energetic, sincere and most of all succinct enough to pull it off.

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