Words: Gareth O’Malley

Punk-pop, eh. That should be the definition of a crowded playing field. It’s gotten to the point where a band needs to be either (a) really original (something that’s increasingly hard to come by in the genre these days) or (b) really fucking good at what they do (something that is thankfully more common) to stick their heads above the parapet and get noticed.

London-via-Bristol-via-Sicily-via-Malta-via-Sri Lanka quartet (now there’s an international band if ever there was one!) The Attika State certainly are not the former. They wear their influences on their sleeve, the majority of which are the emo heavyweights of recent years. In a genre where quite a lot of the output is interchangeable, bands need to have something serious going for them - and by god, this lot do.

Songs like ‘The Horton Shuffle’ and ‘Ups, Downs and Marching Boy Frowns’ are filled with melodies most bands would kill for. The energetic template is established with the soaring cinematics of opener ‘5 Strings, No Wins’, and then the record rattles along at top speed, with very little room to breathe. This approach suits them down to the ground, however.

There isn’t a weak track present anywhere. In fact, the minute-apiece pair of ‘Flesh’ and ‘Bones’ could be considered too short. The latter is one of the best songs on offer on ‘Measures’. There are other moments of sheer excellence here and there, in particular the album’s closer, ‘Yossi’, which is guided along by one of 2010’s most affecting melodies.

The Attika State are in the process of establishing themselves as one of the front-runners in the U.K. punk-pop scene. They pack more energy and enthusiasm into half an hour than most others would manage given double that time, and that’s something to be applauded, like the album itself.

7.8

[Streaming over at Punktastic]