A good place to start with a band is right at the very start. The only problem you have there with Masked Intruder is that the only history that they seem to have involves jail terms…
Their back story is that they’re four ex-cons who apparently formed a band in prison. To conceal their identities, they all wear different colour ski-masks (balaclavas in British terminology) and throughout their self-titled debut album, they keep up the love based larceny routine. It seems to me though that these four dudes (Blue, Green, Yellow and Red) are far more interested in stealing hearts than cars.
Hailing from Madison, Wisconsin – Masked Intruder sound like an awesome amalgamation of all your favourite pop-punk bands with little bits of Weezer, Descendents and some 60s’ vibes thrown in. Lead singer Blue (cunningly named after the colour of his mask) sounds a lot like Chixdiggit’s lead vocalist – KJ, and that’s no bad thing. As aforementioned, this is an album full of tongue-in-cheek love songs with many a reference to their criminal behaviour. Allegedly.
’25 To Life’ kicks off the album with the line: “Some people say that love is a prison, and you’re locked up whenever you’re in it.”, and this pretty much sets the lyrical tone for the album, and stand out track ‘How Do I Get To You’ has a massive chorus that will be stroking your cerebellum for days. ‘Unrequited Love’ drops in with its 60s’ vibes and ‘Heart-Shaped Guitar’ sees Maura from Mixtapes duet with Blue. She rasps – “Why are you standing there in my front yard singing stupid love songs on a heart-shaped guitar?”. It’s great moment on the record, and one that sums up how much fun and tongue in cheek the whole thing is.
Perhaps the only song on the album which isn’t a love song is ‘Stick ‘Em Up.’, an anthemic punk rock song with the chorus proclaiming – “I’VE GOT A KNIFE MOTHERFUCKER – STICK ‘EM UP!”, and penultimate ditty ‘Wish You Were Mine’ starts off with an a cappella “I want you to show me romance. Won’t you give a lonely masked man a chance?”, which helps to keep the band’s broken-hearted image intact.
To sum it all up, ‘Masked Intruder’ is a perfect piece of pop punk pizza and anyone with an appetite for tune filled cheese will love it. Their apparent thievery only works as a willing accomplice to thirteen slices of songwriting goodness, and it’ll be interesting to see how the gimmick stretches out into the second album. Hopefully they’ll find love, stop robbing people and then they won’t need to wear the masks on stage (else how are the girls (and guys) gonna see how handsome and macho they are?). Not to mention the itchiness. This debut album is a cut above other recent pop-punk releases, and Fat Mike has made a good call to license this for Fat Wreck via Red Scare. If you like big choruses, shitloads of harmonies and sugary pop punk – then look no further… this is the album for you!
JHON COSGROVE