Another half-decent pop-punk-rock album. Apparently, what makes Man Alive different is that they hail from Israel (completely disregarding the fact that Useless ID exist) but that hasn’t helped them along the way a great deal. They’ve still managed to put out an album with mostly fast songs, a couple of slow ones, and they’re fairly catchy. Which, if you excuse my cynicism, puts them alongside about infinity to the power of infinity other bands, right now.
And while there’s nothing downright offensive about ‘Open Surgery’ (bar the excruciatingly pop-lite ‘Say What You Want’), and it does have its fair share of hummable tunes. Songs like ‘Give Me A Sign’ and ‘Rewind’ are nicely catchy without being too irritating and zip along at a fair old lick, but there’s nothing on display here that sets Man Alive aside from, well, anyone. It might be unfair to place them in direct competition with so many other bands, but with the accessibility of punk rock reaching an all time high, bands really need to make the effort to avoid being lumped in with the chaff and falling into the slipstream of the big hitters. If this were a decade ago (and lest we forget, 1995 wasn’t that long ago , or so it seems) then Man Alive might have been able to carve a name out for themselves, but as it is it seems that they’re fighting a losing battle.
