Deep Elm’s own website suggests Ride Your Bike will be for fans of Plain White T’s, Dashboard Confessional, Say Anything, Honorary Title and Annuals, but I think there’s a definite nod towards Brand New on this record too. Ride Your Bike like to keep their songs short and sweet. Based around the dual vocal attack of Mike Getches and Ryan Hassell the band can easily mix up the cuter sounding tracks, little like All American Rejects, with the more mature songs that, I feel, reference ‘Deja Entendu’ era Brand New. Oh, and this band are consistently awesome.
According to Deep Elm the album is ‘a musical companion to a wartime story, Bad News From The Bar is a lush soundscape that finds childhood friends Elliot and Lillian drifting apart due to Elliot’s big city dreams. It’s only through encounters with drug-addicted neighbors, police interrogators and fiery plane crashes that the pair ultimately discover what’s really important’.
But don’t let the thought of a pretentious record put you off because this record is nothing less than brilliant all the way through. The driving ‘This Car Is Hot As Hell’ shows the band can mix up the pace of the tracks successfully. ‘Sticks and Stones’ and ‘We All Have Our Shoes’ have killer harmonies too. Deep Elm has had an excellent 2007 but this release possibly tops the pile – you really should check this band out.