This should have been the official relase...the Anthem album
Mike Nguyen | San Jose, CA USA | 05/21/2006
(4 out of 5 stars)
"I have accepted that Less than jake will never make Pezcore or Losing Streak again; which makes sense because any progressive band eventualy moves on to something different.
In short Anthem was a snooze fest...with the exception of a few tracks. (Roger has the best stuff off of Anthem, Chris' songs are lacking somthing: ie:Short fuse Burning, Escape from the A-Bomb House, Call it a Union and Surrender is just a horendous cover of the original)With that being said, I expected more attempts at being catchy pop-punk and failing.
After a week of listening to B is for B-Sides, I can't stop shouting the lyrics while listening to it. While driving and listening to this album I feel at ease and pissed-off at the same time. Chris returns to full glory with his vocals on this album and every track is catchy as hell.
If you enjoy moments in songs that make you want to sing along and dance then this album has it in spades.
LTJ has finally put out a good pop-punk album (something they've been trying to do since Borders and Boundaries). I'm giving this 4 stars out of 5 because I didn't think Less Than Jake had it in them to make a great album (the last one being hello rockview)...this proves me wrong.
It's just too bad that with "In with the out crowd" Less Than Jake over-steps the pop-boundaries into a land of bubble gum & taffy coated compositions."