When I first played this album, I had a conversation with the missus that went a bit like this:
GF: Is this a new Fall Out Boy album?
ME: No, it’s a band called Scenes From A Movie.
GF: The singer sounds a lot like the bloke from Fall Out Boy. And the music sounds quite like Panic! At The Disco.
ME: Yeah they do, don’t they?
GF: I like it, but it doesn’t half rip those bands off…
Which I feel rather aptly sums up SFAM. Don’t get me wrong, this album is absolutely brilliant in a generic and borrowed way – it’s hardly left my CD player since it arrived – but it sounds exactly like what has been fashionable for the last year. So if you like Hit The Lights, FOB and all those other pop-punk acts, I’d bet my house you’re going to freak out at how much fun this band are.
Pretty much every song on this album has a strong vocal, catchy as Hell riff and a singalong chorus. The production is sweet as a nut and it ticks all the relevant pop-punk boxes. If you can look past the obvious soundalikes, this is a fantastic little record. ‘The Cover Up’, ‘Heartbeat From Hell’ and ‘Save You’ are absolutely joyous songs which are destined for big audiences, while ‘Just Ask Us’ and ‘Hang Your Halo’ have massive choruses which beg to be sung along to at volume.
This is a fantastic little record. It’s unoriginal, granted, but when the songs are as fun – and as good – as this, all is forgiven.