Canadian punk rockers, the Delinquents, have had a fairly busy first half of 2015. They re-released a re-mastered version of their Punish the Wicked EP and now they have put out a 7-inch that contains two brand new songs.

This is the Delinquents’ first new material in a while, so understandably their sound has changed a bit. The first song, “Counting the Days” shows that the band has moved towards a bit more of a rowdier and thrashy-er sound, while still staying true to their melodic punk roots. In “Counting the Days” there are these high-pitched guitar harmonic fills that are sprinkled through out the verses that are dominated mostly by the bass line and lead singer’s, Jimmy Delinquent’s raspy vocals. The pre-choruses are filled with high-intensity and crunchy palm muting from the guitars and in the choruses they let each chord ring out loudly to back up Jimmy’s anthemic vocal melody. Fifteen seconds into my first listen of “Counting the Days,” I could already tell that it was going to be awesome song. And when the three minutes were up, my thoughts were confirmed.

The B-side song, “On Blackened Wings” did not hit me like the first time I had listened to “Counting the Days.” It is by no means a “bad song,” but it took me a few plays to get into it. You could say that it is very much a “grower.” The foundation of the song is based on a main guitar riff that sounds very, classic rock influenced, like something out of a Led Zeppelin album or something like that. Instead of the usual angry and confrontational tone in Jimmy Delinquent’s voice that you can hear on “Counting the Days” or songs off of Punish The Wicked like “Holidays” and “I Got Wise,” his voice is much more reserved. He and the back-up vocalists really try to hit those extra high notes during the anthemic-sounding choruses, especially. The part of “On Blackened Wings” that probably most of us will not see coming is in the middle of the track when the guitarist dive into this guitar solo duel that is filled with big bends, fast pull-offs, and death metal-like tapping. This break in the track is kind of like the guitar solos in Alice Cooper’s “Feed My Frankenstein.” That in large part did redeem this song for me after the first listen. But again, after a few more listens “On Blackened Wings” definitely grew on me.