No Exit Plan are just two members strong, but they make one hell of a big noise between. Pop-punk and dance are probably not the immediate choice of crossover genres on paper, but the band manage to blend the two to great effect here.
No Exit Plan have built their music around the two genres blended rather than doing one well and throwing bits of the other in whenever they feel like it – what you’d expect from 3OH!3 if they tried to write something a bit more edgy and actually succeeded.
The songs can be a little repetitive, but that’s not uncommon for either genres, and the band aren’t giving off an impression that they’re trying to be clever, so it should be taken as it is. It’s not trying to be particularly technical, the lyrics don’t seem to be long-winded metaphors for sleep or anything, and it’s certainly not heavy or moody. What it is, is fun. This is music to be stuck on at a party or at a gig, and to go completely ape-shit bonkers to. Opening track They’ll Never Know in particular shows that this album is full of tracks to dance to.
Of course, with every party it starts to chill out as everyone gets progressively more drunk and pass out in to bins, and this album is very much the same; nearing the middle it starts to slow, the electronics switching to piano and the guitars exchanging their distortion for swirly phasers and flangers. Also, ‘Punch Me in the Face!’ is just plain weird. Can you still sing a song pretending to be Spanish and not have it classed as racist these days? Who knows.
This release from No Exit Plan isn’t particularly punky, it’s not heavy in the slightest (not even in the electronic music use of the term). but at the same time there’s something about the music that makes No Exit Plan fit surprisingly well; they could easily play alongside Yellowcard, Mallory Knox or Me vs Hero, and would definitely bring the party while they were at it.
ANDY LEDDINGTON