Album Reviews

Featuring members of The Ataris and Lagwagon, Versus The World is a band I had all but forgotten about to be perfectly honest. In my defense I would like to say that I apparently completely missed the release of their second album in 2012. Which means I had to rack my brain all the way back to 2005, when the band dropped their debut on Kung Fu Records.

On “Homesick/Roadsick”, the band does an adequate job of mixing 90s era pop-punk with some post-hardcore influences. With no less than three guitars in the line-up, it doesn’t take these guys much effort to whip up a wall of sound with some decent melodies thrown in there. Not all of the songs are equally memorable though, which means that for every “Santa Margarita” (a tribute to No Use For A Name’s Tony Sly) there is also a “Sight For Sore Eyes”, a song that does little more than float by. That and the fact that I’m not a big fan of Donald Spence’s vocals, who seems hellbent on emphasizing every single word, leaves me feeling lukewarm at best about this one.