Album Review: "Twilight EP" by Skyfox

It seems like I'm doing a lot of reviews of EPs doesn't it? Well, normally I'm not really a purchaser of EPs, but I just seem to have found a few in my possession lately...and there will be at least one more EP reviewed in the near future....

Here's a band that under normal circumstances would have stayed far outside of my radar. I discovered Skyfox because of MC Lars who was coming to St. Louis on tour with I Fight Dragons. Upon learning of the line up of bands, I did some checking. Between my friends and I that were going, none of us had ever heard of Skyfox. So, I checked them out on Youtube and honestly, I wasn't overly excited.

Upon arriving at the venue, I went over to the merch tables, manned by the artists themselves, and picked up three EPs, but not Skyfox's. We then listened to the opening band and had a beer or two, but as soon as Skyfox kicked into their first song, and the singer was swinging a sweet Gibson Les Paul Supreme, I just got it and I went and picked up this CD.

This EP is pretty typical of what I think of in terms of pop punk music. The singer has a pretty high voice, the songs are pretty up tempo, and simple, but what I found to be pretty different were the lyrics.

There are some really well written songs by this band. The lyrics are well thought out, witty, and a bit poetic. The song "The Worst Part of Me" about a break up with an ex-girlfriend comes to mind.

The opening song, "Run Away", is an uptempo rocker about a friend who left his life in the city to go live in the country just to get away from it all. I suppose for this band, this is what makes them special to me. They aren't gifted musically. The singing sounds pretty similar in all of their songs. I never had a wow moment when it came to what they were playing, but it just sounds damned good. The songs feel good and they make me bob my head along to them.

Up tempo, a bit sappy, poppy, but witty and fun. That's the best way I could describe this band. The only dud on this EP is the final song, "Church," which was the first song ever written by Johnny Hill, the singer. It's just an immature track all around and it really does show that it was the first thing he'd ever done. Though I suppose  that there's something a bit courageous about putting that song on a disc. I can think of the first song I ever wrote, not that I've got much of a catalog, but I can't say that I'd be willing to let anyone else hear it now...

Genre: Pop Punk
Year: 2010
Run time: 16:09
Playlists: Rock, Modern Rock

Track Listing:
1) Run AWay
2) Twilight
3) Worst Part Of me
4) Punk Rawk Gentleman
5) Church