Commitment in Bloomington, MN

For its second
Elektra
effort,
Lucky Boys Confusion
hacks off its
hip-hop
jones and tailors its
ska
tendencies, concentrating on the
poppish
,
punkish
sound that defined the best moments of 2001's
Throwing the Game
. This is a wise move. Single
"Fred Astaire"
was the best thing about that album, and its dreamboat harmonies, sugar-smack power chords, and propulsive production are all over
Commitment
. After a
dub
intro that crams every conceivable cliche of that genre into one weird minute,
the Boys
accelerate into
"Hey Driver."
Perfectly meaningless lyrics sung in just the right timbre over a barbed-wire guitar riff and gang vocal dropouts? Yes, it's all here, and as impossibly catchy as you'd imagine. This is the song that you'll catch your father tapping his steering wheel to -- at least until the next
Sum 41
single comes out. But that's OK.
LBC
seems to realize that its niche lies somewhere between the baby brat mall punks and
Sugar Ray
's jumble of sunny vibes and
pop
-ternative jingles. To that end, the only real nod to
Lucky Boys
'
third wave
past is
"Sunday Afternoon,"
where vocalist
Kaustubh Pandav
sounds exactly like
Mark McGrath
, harmonizes with
Half Pint
, and does so over a sputtering
reggae
groove that rips off the acoustic guitar twinges that sold a nation on
's
"Fly"
in 1997. (The weird thing is that it also cops the off-kilter strum of
Fred Durst
Method Man
collabo on
the Bizkit
"N 2 Gether Now,"
but that's neither here nor there.) Later,
"Blame"
does try to conjure some college town
rumble during the verse. But the band sounds much more comfortable sinking into the cut's blazing
punk revivalist
chorus. There's nothing -- and that means nothing -- revolutionary about
"Hey Driver,"
"Broken,"
and
"Beware."
But they combine snappy, crunchy hooks with
Pandav
's flair for a vocal melody, and should earn
a slot on the year 2015's "We Were There, Too!" compilation alongside
Reel Big Fish
Bowling for Soup
, and
Lit
. ~ Johnny Loftus