Western Settings - Another Year

San Diego's Western Settings offer up their second album and it's suitably great. There is a real problem with the Punk Pop audience at times, in that any band who doesn't follow the template get castigated as Sell Outs or Lightweight. It's rubbish, why would bands not want to expand their audience?

Anyway, I've never really thought of the band as Punk Pop. They are far too melodic to be Punk and not vocally robotic enough to be Punk Pop. This isn't to say that they can't do shouty Punk, Back To 52 shows that they can do it well.








Western Settings have a lot of Replacements similarities, but at times, sound more like the more structured side of 70's UK Punk that made New Wave so enjoyable. I hear a lot of The Skids' first album here, not lyrically, but certainly sound wise, very Stuart Adamson, Scared To Dance Era.

Better again there are Skids comparisons on Better, this that sounds more like the free album with The Absolute Game. Duckets Is Tight is Power Pop in it's structure, but far too heavy to be adopted there, there's a killer Guitar Wall Of Sound.








That's Pretty Good is like The Killers doing Generation X and the stand out is the approaching five minutes of Charmian, it's an awesome slab of Indie Rock, outstanding. There's even a Ballad, Angus, to end proceedings, something that was unexpected with all the noice and pace that's preceded it.

New listeners may be drawn to the likes of potential Radio Hits like Big, but it's the overall quality of the album that shines through. Another Year knocks spots off most of the Indie Guitar albums around at the moment, so please don't label them as Punk Pop and stick them in a corner. Highly Recommended!








You can listen to and buy the album here.


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