Album Reviews

- by Nate Hennon

Because Jake Ewald and Brendan Lukens, the two primary members, split up the writing duties, Modern Baseball's latest effort, "Holy Ghost", is a superb album. With their ability to expertly jump between '90s Pop Punk and '00 Emo Revival, Modern Baseball is a band out of time. Even though I am an avid '90s Pop Punk lover, the Emo portion of this album is the stronger set of songs. Do yourself a favor and listen to “Coding These to Lukens”, “Breathing in Stereo" and "Apple Cider, I Don't Mind". These songs have the jangly guitar and driving rhythms indicative of their East Coast roots.

Furthermore, when I was playing in my high school punk band, I spent more time scrutinizing which teen angst song should follow our dumb song about girls than I did running bass scales. The sequence of a good set of songs is very important to the overall feel and flow, “Holy Ghost” is sequenced extremely well. By blasting out of the quite guitar and vocal based “Holy Ghost” into the peppiness of “Wedding Singer”, Modern Baseball set the tone for the whole album. By having all of the songs flow together, but not blend into one, “Holy Ghost” has a ton of re-listenability. I have found myself playing the whole album on repeat, which is a rarity in these modern times.