With All Time Low about to blow up, you can’t blame Hopeless records for looking out for bands with a similar melodic slant to their sound. The Dangerous Summer come across like some kind of ATL/Say Anything hybrid, a little slicker and less clever than Max Bemis’ project, but with a slightly different vocal delivery that doesn’t make them ‘just another one of those’ pop-punk bands which seem to crawl out of the woodwork each summer.
‘If You Could Only Keep Me Alive’ doesn’t really break any new ground, but it’s good for what it does. The songs are catchy, the riffs are bouncy and, in the same way their label mates in ATL did on their first EP, it sets the tone nicely for what will undoubtedly come in the future. And while The Dangerous Summer aren’t yet the final product, there’s enough on show here to suggest the future’s bright. It may not have been a dangerous (or particularly warm, for that matter) summer in the UK this year, but this lot could quite easily brighten up your day.