Album Reviews

Alive & Well originally started as an acoustic project for Matt Vernon, but has since evolved into a full-fledged pop-punk band. “From Basements To Beaches” shows a band who know what they’re doing. Unfortunately what they do is play by-the-numbers pop-punk that manages to tick off every single cliché in the rulebook in just four songs.

You’ve heard these riffs, rhythms, melodies and gang vocals done exactly the same way a zillion times before. The same goes for the lyrics… topics like leaving the town you grew up in, enduring hardship and staying positive are hardly new. For a second I thought “No Winter In The West” was a song about arthritis (winter’s coming and my body knows), which at least would have been original. Turns out it’s about seasonal affective disorder.

Alive & Well? Barely.