Review Summary: already been heard, already been forgotten
Hit the Lights are part of the new wave of annoyingly inoffensive pop-punk bands that have been showing up on teeny-bopper's iPods as of late. While they present nothing to distinguish themselves from the hordes of sound-a-likes that have worked their ways to a record deal by courting the AP.net crowd, their catalog of releases, 2006's
This is a Stick Up... Don't Make it a Murder and last year's
Skip School, Start Fights, though derivative and unimaginative, were kinda fun for what they were. So just in time for the summer of 2009, Hit the Lights have released the
Coast to Coast EP. Fans of the band will probably be welcoming this material with open arms, but for the rest of us the main question is why? Consisting of two new songs, two acoustic versions of older tracks, and two covers, the
Coast to Coast EP is a stop-gap release for a band that in all reality only needs this release to keep up the hype created by last year's release lest they be replaced by the new flavor of the week.
The two new songs start off the EP. The album's title track is Hit the Light's at their best, a high energy romp born from their touring experiences with such cliche but likable lines as "looking back on the past year we've come up and faced the clubs, the dirty pubs, and we didn't care/ we live for tears, sweat and blood. It's the scars that make us we leave them open, we've got the guts to show it." Sure, it's been done a million times before, but it still sounds good. Unfortunately the rest of the EP is a mess. The two covers, Elliott's "Drive Onto Me" and Further Seems Forever's "Snowbirds and Townies", just end up losing their original charm and falling flat. Especially "Snowbirds", as the generic as hell approach to the song just ends up digging it's own grave.
Coast to Coast closes out with two acoustic renditions of fan favorites from earlier albums, because we all know how much thirteen year old girls dig the slowdance songs. If you don't fall into that category, chances are you'll be just as bored with the tepid attempts at balladry as I am.
When it all boils down to it,
Coast to Coast is an extraneous release from a band that has the whole cookie-cutter pop-punk sound down to a tee. With the exception of the title track, the entire EP reeks of a bad case of already been heard, already been forgotten.
