International Superheroes of Hardcore - Takin' It Ova! (2008)
I sure do like New Found Glory, y'know? They sing a lot about how a girl wronged them and how it's been a summer and all that fragile teenage stuff when we all thought that -one- person was gonna be that -ONE- person, but then they decided to dress up as superheroes, let the guitarist do vocals, and record an entire EP full of hardcore punk songs about funny, lighthearted stuff ranging from how you're dumb if you don't use a seatbelt, how people who scam you on eBay are the absolute worst people in the world, and of course, how being straight edge is the answer to all of life's problems. I used to REALLY enjoy listening to this EP on repeat while playing "Lego Star Wars" when I was a teenager in order to escape my fucked up situation that could've been entirely preventable at any fucking moment if I just had the balls to tell a few people to fuck off, but when you're a teenager, simple thoughts like that just don't fucking cross your mind!! You end up doing some stupid shit like writing a public Facebook status with some passive-aggressive-but-mostly-depressing lyrics in them, which if you didn't know: MOST MUSIC IS FUCKING INFESTED WITH IT! That's why this EP was a much needed breath of fresh air for me when I was arguably at the darkest point in my life, and yeah, these songs are gucci.
It may be a funny novelty album, but a lot of these songs genuinely succeed as hardcore punk songs that don't do that whole "we're basically metalcore but we jump around when we do live gigs, so we're hardcore" shit, because these ACTUALLY are hardcore punk songs that are catchy and will make you smile from just how ridiculous they are, especially when Chad Gilbert screams "MOTHER FRICKER!!" in "Seat Belt". Oh, these rascals.. I guess in their quest of being international superheroes of hardcore, they ended up temporarily saving me from horrible moments in my life, and that's beautiful enough to get a shitty film adaption of my story, which, hey, it might suck, but if this is the soundtrack, then it'll still be an enjoyable time. Here's a -loving- parody of the music genre without being void of musical substance, and isn't just cringeworthy YouTube parody lyrics. It invites you to suspend your mind to a more innocent and positive frame of mind, and really, ain't that the one thing we all want besides the third VHS tape of the second season of "Gilmore Girls"? Hold up, time to load up my Listia account!!
7/10
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Feel free to check out the song previews/buy this album using my Amazon Associate link!
