Creativity, excitement, innovation; when will bands learn reviewers crave these things. To cut a long rant short; RIVER CITY HIGH do not offer any of these said qualities. However, what they do serve up, with this 5 track E.P, is some highly polished, slick sounding, typically American sounding pop-punk. More importantly though, they do it well, or at least well enough to have landed support slots with NFG, BLINK 182 and SOMETHING CORPORATE and three years’ appearances on the Warped Tour.
On the first few listens I found myself disliking this release quite a lot, mainly for the reasons I hinted at earlier. Basically it’s nothing anyone reading this won’t have heard before. From the clichéd ‘Let’s go’ on the opening track to the chirpy, happy melodies present throughout the whole CD backed by big bouncy riffs and cheesy guitar licks, I can guarantee everyone has a few CDs like this in their collection and a few more they’ve forgotten about. To be frank I didn’t think I needed anymore.
But there’s something just so unashamedly happy about these tracks the bitterness has been worn away and I’m actually enjoying listening it. Whether it’s the insanely infectious chorus on ‘Waste Your Time’ or indeed any of the other tracks, or simply whether it’s just the whole ‘feel good summer anthem vibe’ getting under my skin I can’t help but tap my foot and press repeat, especially on closing track ‘Heads & Tails’, reminding me of something between LIT and FENIX TX if you’ll excuse a lazy comparison.
In essence, every track is instantly catchy, but for this ‘pro’ the ‘con’ is that they are as quickly forgotten but whilst RCH are on my player the day seems a little bit brighter if only for three minutes at a time. Definitely a grower and indeed, a keeper.
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