Rufio

MCMLXXXV (2003)

Scott Heisel

Oh, how clever! The band titled their album "1985," but they wrote it in Roman numerals!

Wait, did I say clever? I meant ANNOYING AS FUCK.

But yet, once again, this band that I want to hate so much releases their new full-length, and I have to admit that it's not all that bad.

Yeah yeah, I know - what is this site, some flavor-of-the-week webpage run by idiots that falls in love with three dozen bands that all sound exactly the same and exist solely to milk teenage girls of their lunch money?

I swear we're not. And I swear my tastes are still really obscure and I swear I'll keep giving bands you've never heard of super-high scores and I swear I'll continue to pan almost anything these cockasses put out.

But there's something endearing about Rufio. So many of the punker-than-thous hate their guts, and yet they persevere. And I'll be damned if I don't catch myself singing along with many of the tracks on this album. This is just fun pop-punk for a mostly younger crowd [meaning: anyone who needs someone else to buy them cigarettes and beer], but I'm getting some kind of strange enjoyment out of it.

What's funny is, my younger sister has completely fallen in love with this CD. For a reference point, my younger sister is 18, and her favorite bands are Something Corporate, Dashboard Confessional, and Jimmy Eat World [Bleed American-era, obviously]. She can't stop singing along to these songs as I play the CD [for review purposes only, I swear]. So if you are like my younger sister, you'll really dig the shit out of this album.

If you're like me, you'll begrudgingly admit that this band has a shitload of talent [although the singer's voice is by far the group's weakest point - after 12 tracks of nasally whining, I want to punch the fucker out {as I sing along to these ridiculously basic lyrics that have been burned into my brain}].

Gah, I dunno, it's late and I'm tired as shit. If you want to hear what the band sounds like [as I don't really think I described them at all], just download the fucking MP3s. I'm going to bed.

And I'll probably have these songs as the background in my dreams tonight, too - goddammit.

MP3s
Science Fiction
White Lights
Why Wait?