Shambles is a pop-punk band from Boston, with a love for melody, circle pits and post ironic song titles. On the surface, they seem to be a fairly generic pop-punk band and I won’t completely dismiss that but there’s a lot of great aspects to this self-released EP. The best thing about this album is the honestly that really comes through in the music. You can tell immediately that Shambles is compiled of a few good friends who’ve been listening to The Descendents since their early teens and just really want to play music.
The lyrics are well written and sung in a sarcastic tone reminiscent of The Matches while the instrumentals bring forth a lot more in common with Saves The Day and at times Jawbreaker. Catchy beats and memorable hooks make this a very enjoyable listen. However, the song I enjoyed most was “Everyone’s In Love With Someone Who Isn’t you” and unfortunately this song stuck out as being a little too different from the rest of the album. This song captured the 90’s pop-punk movement vibe in a way that not too many bands these days can do but the rest of the album sounded like it would be right at home being played at the 2003 warped tour (Rufio, Motion City Soundtrack). This is not a terrible thing but it makes me wonder if Shambles really understands what kind of sound they want to have. A few songs start to blend into each other after a few listens, which makes the album drag on a little long.
More time put into the writing process is a must but this is a very enjoyable album for fans of good pop-punk/powerpop. Hopefully we’ll get to see another release from this band very soon.
