I’m not sure whether Animal Names are ‘Punktastic’ enough for the usual PT crowd, but there’s a really quirky feel that’s a throwback to the late 90s midwestern emo crowd that I really enjoyed about ‘Let It Been’. If you like The Promise Ring or Nada Surf, or maybe even The Get Up Kids if they wrote ‘On A Wire’ at the time they recorded ‘Four Minute Mile’, then you’ll almost certainly enjoy this. The male/female vocals trade blows in a really cool way and the songs have passion and love in abundance. ‘Santa’s Bday’, for instance, just eptiomises the word ‘cool’.
Animal Names won’t be for everyone – and incidentally I gather this is their last record before they split up – but it’s a really fun, cute little listen. If you’re after something a bit different, maybe a bit of a throwback to when music was a bit more honest, ‘Let It Been’ is the record for you.