To bring an end to this fall month, Art Fag Records will release the first full-length LP by California-bred punks, Plateaus. Led by Jon Greene, who occasionally offers skills as a sound manager for Art Fag events, the band delivers a rushing thirty minutes of non-stop pop punk, summery jams, reminiscent to those by early punk pioneers like The Clash, The Ramones, and even surf rock one-hit-wonders, The Surfaris. The driven guitar intro to “Suzy” is extremely similar to guitar riffs in the iconic surfer track, “Wipeout.”
Despite the very infrequent similarities to already existent songs, Plateaus is sure to please the typical punk fan. The upbeat, feel good mood of the record is set by shrill, arpeggiated guitar notes rung out in the opening track entitled “Blackout.” This feel is consistently held throughout the fast paced sounds of songs like “Oh Man” and “Do It For You” up until the final track, an indie-rock love ballad which strays away from the overall aura of the album. That is, until the final forty seconds in which the listener would be surprised to hear an abrupt change in tone from mellow chords to screechy thirty-second note guitar shredding to wrap up the record in the exact style of its beginning.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyiB01HKrjE&w=560&h=315]
Other noteworthy tracks include “Beach Coma” and “Jump Now.” The self-titled LP by Plateaus comes out Tuesday, October 30th.
-written by Mitchell McDermott