The New Rochelles

It's New! (2011)

Sloane Daley

It's New! could be summed up easiest with two words: the Ramones. The New Rochelles are a Ramones-core pop-punk band from New York and there isn't much else to it. You are gonna get three and four chords strung together, '60s girl group-inspired melodies, and topics that range from the the juvenile to the ridiculous. Still, even though you are expecting it, it is done pretty well. Do you knock a pizza for looking and smelling like a pizza and then tasting like a pretty good pizza? No, of course you don't.

Like every good hero needs a theme song, every good pop-punk band needs their own anthem; for the New Rochelles that anthem is "Go Go New Ro!". The song has a dark, almost garage-like progression similar to Teenage Bottlerocket's own anthem "Bottlerocket"; having the phrase "Go go New Ro!" being the only lyrics in the song, they easily get stuck in your head and have you singing along. The best part about the Ramones is that they were economical, and the New Rochelles seem to get this where a lot of bands don't, and end up over-saturating the song with the hook. "S.L.O.T.H." manages to use time-honoured Ramones-core tradition of spelling out words letter for letter, and also add an unusual amount of dynamics for this type of thing. The chorus is played at a fairly standard mid-paced chug, but the verses are spit out at such a speed you can't understand the lyrics. Even though you've probably heard this all before, those little things really do make a difference. It's like they say, "the devil is in the details," except the devil is something good here, I swear!

If you hate Ramones-core, It's New! isn't the type of album that will shake things up enough to change your mind on it, because it isn't the best that has ever been done or anything. However, if you do at least like the genre, this is better than average, so you probably shouldn't sleep on it.

Count how many times I said Ramones/Ramones-core! Win a Noprize!