2015 is shaping up to be another great year for fans of pop-punk. The Story So Far dropped another stonkingly great album a couple of weeks back, New Jersey stalwarts Man Overboard’s long player Heavy Love is due for a late June release and Welsh upstarts Neck Deep‘s follow up sophomore album to 2014’s Wishful Thinking in August.
Leading the Aussie charge is Brisbane’s Columbus, who spat out their gorgeous EP Home Remedy a few months back and We Set Signals with Polaris. Stepping up to the plate now is Melbourne’s Anchors, who return to the airways after a three year absence with single Stay Fast.
Pop punk is alive and well, and none more so than Anchors on Stay Fast. The Melbourne outfit have rebooted, brandishing their unique punk edge.
The band haven’t been sitting around twiddling their fingers during this period of hiatus, oh no, no, no! According to mouthpiece and guitarist Chris, it’s been a case of a fairly constant slog of touring here, there and everywhere around the world, in weird and wonderful places such as Mexico. As with most things rock ‘n roll, band members are lost along the way, which means the remainder re-shuffle and in Anchors’ case, taking time out to re-invent themselves by starting over again.
Getting back to basics meant the band re-learning their back catalogue, so whether or not this means an album will be released with some new and revamped tracks, only time will tell. At the moment though, it’s full steam ahead and chilling out, writing new stuff ahead of a possible EP release. Then it’ll be back on the road to plug away, again and again.
With the band citing influences such as Dr.Dre, Propagandhi and Taking Back Sunday, new single Stay Fast would certainly fall under the latter recommendation. From the opening bars, the song bounces along with verses punctuated with accentuated words, choruses stepping up the pace and then back down again and generally cramming as many rock steady beats and guitars as one can into three and a half minutes.
Vocals that are venomously spat out are very reminiscent of The Story So Far, which can be only a good thing. The only gripe is that there isn’t enough backing vocals, just to give a bit more substance – no such thing as too much screamo. Brandishing a few affirmative reviews under their belt, Stay Fast is a great, solid track to make a bit of a comeback with and hopefully this is their statement of intent for the future.
