It's been quite a while since I've been so pleasantly surprised with a true pop-punk album. I'm not meaning the pop-punk that you associate with bands like Latterman, Descendents or Teenage Bottlerocket to name a few, but more the Drive-Thru kind with the clean vocals if you know what I mean.

Since its release in October the record of these Philadelphians was #1 on the Smart Punk and Download Punk charts and their Myspace page has sky rocketed to over 125,000 views. Quite an accomplishment if you ask me considering the amount of bands in this category lately. What makes them better than the majority of others definitely are the energetic multi-layered guitars, the infectious hooks and the great vocals (even a female voice is thrown in there somewhere), but also the many nice additional handclaps, the synth that comes in from time to time and the distortions which make for some great variation. What is more, the somewhat slower songs like "Tenth Street" and "Eagle Mount Drive" are not sounding sleezy at all.

It all might be somewhat reminiscent to everything we've been hearing over the last few years from so many bands, but this is so much more appealing and catchy than usual, and on top the production is absolutely ace, which makes this a good choice if you're looking for a good grabbing, easy-listening yet ballsy pop-punk album somewhere in the middle of Midtown, New Found Glory and Over It. BTW: I Surrender is the label of Midtown member Rob Hitt, so this sound should not really be that big a surprise.