Gob — Muertos Vivos

I might be one of the only people who actually enjoyed Gob's last album, Foot In Mouth Disease. Compared with most of the other crap that was coming out of the pop-punk woodwork, that record was fast, catchy and not trying too hard to be something it wasn't. The same can be said of Muerto Vivos, Gob's first album in four years. The Vancouver quartet haven't changed much, but they've added a harder edge to their power-pop. Vocalist Tom Thacker screams his lungs out on a number of tracks, and the riffs are more System Of A Down than Sum 41. It's a shame these guys never saw as much success as some of the other faceless acts that blew up a few years back, because their hooks are far catchier than any of Simple Plan's and some songs are, by pop-punk standards, kind of bad-ass. They might not be the punk band they were a decade ago, but Gob still know how to write a great song or 10.