Album Reviews

- by Tom Dumarey

When Columbus, OH punk scene veteran Shane Natalie isn’t busy playing in or recording one of a million bands, he likes to make albums under the Good Shade moniker. I hear you thinking ‘ah, a solo album’. And well, you are right. It very much is seeing as Natalie writes and records all the instruments and vocals on the Good Shade albums. But it sure doesn’t sound like it. And in a live setting, he surrounds himself with a revolving cast of friends so they can be loud together.

‘Way Out’ comes with a dozen songs of the jangly, slightly spazzy kind that you can still safely label as pop-punk. But pop-punk in the way Marked Men are pop-punk as well. Not like The Wonder Years or - god forbid - New Found Glory. It’s all frantic energy, nervy drums and riffs that are like a small child in the sense that you have to keep your eye on them all the time, or they veer off on some unpredictable path.

Lyrically, the songs on ‘Way Out’ focus on deteriorating mental health and increased social anxiety that are juxtaposed against warm and shiny melodies that can be found plastered all over this album.

Track listing:

1. Maybe
2. We Were Wrong
3. Must Have Been
4. Apnea
5. We're Open
6. Hurry It Up
7. Credit Score
8. Something's Wrong
9. 401
10. I Don't Want Anymore
11. Just Leave
12. Where To