The Invisibles

Fireworks (2004)

Adam White

The sophomore record from Brazilian four piece The Invisibles is one of those releases that at the right time and place would have made quite the splash. It's not too hard to envision songs like "Hello" or "The Satellite Song" as huge pop radio hits in the late 90s when Blink 182 broke with comparable material. Fireworks is just that type of upbeat, pretension free, aurally welcoming mix of Green Day fostered pop punk and the 90s alt rock that hummed along in opposition to the doom and gloom of the latter day grunge acts.

While the album maintains a sunny mood throughout the band's songwriting is actually quite versatile. The Invisibles major advantage over their ever numerous peers is that they're never caught dwelling on a good hook for longer then a three minute pop song requires. You can hear this in the single "One Last Song About Summer" with its shades of early Weezer (especially in the chorus) or the surf influenced "Ocean Skyline." Elsewhere tunes like "Candyrock" features energetic Ramones-worshiping punk that wouldn't feel out of place on Lookout's roster before the turn of the century. To its credit Fireworks is also one of those rare pop punk records that remains completely free of schmaltz. There was a segment of the punk-trend-timeline just after Blink-182 when a mind-numbingly poor acoustic heartbreak song was standard for these types of releases, but thankfully The Invisibles have stuck to what they do best and spared us that.

There's a suitable level of production here that gives the band's crisp rock songs the power they need without excessive gloss. Instrumentally the band's quite tight and perfectly matched to the style they're shooting for. I'm not the first to comment that Fabio Andrade's voice bares more than a passing resemblance to that of Nikola Sarcevic, and likewise his vocals are both familiar yet feature unique touch of character.

Fireworks is an unassuming but infectious little rock record. Fans of bands like Autopilot Off or The Ataris or those who'd like their fun pop punk free of teenage melodrama, check this out.