Review Summary: What more do you expect from a French "popcore" band?
One of the things that I love about the Paris based Chunk! No Captain Chunk! Is the fact that they are so fun and easy to listen to. Though many bands label themselves within the “popcore” genre, most of them fail miserably due to the fact that they have no real creativity nor can create music that’s as fun to listen to as they may think it is. There are a few names that come to mind though when thinking about the true “popcore” bands out there, and one of them is Chunk! No Captain Chunk!. Every song has a great amount of energy and the album as a whole has a great vibe to it.
One of the things that instantly stands out about this band is their amount of energy, they manage to make every song fast and fun to listen to. A few tracks on the record contain a more heavy sound than others, using the limited screaming talent of front man Bertrand Poncet to back up the more hardcore based moments. These are found through the album, some songs may contain a quick breakdown and others are full of these moments. These more hardcore moments seem to be more of a weakness in some parts simply because they feel out of place. Though this is rare, it’s noticeable on some tracks.
The poppier tracks on the album are great most of the time, they’re catchy and fun to sing along with. Another problem lies in the fact that unless you have the lyrics in front of you, some moments aren’t to understandable because of the singers accent, he does a good job though keeping a majority of it comprehensible. Chants are heard quite often through the album, and though it may be great live, gets kind of annoying and repetitive when you get farther into the album. Another thing that bothers me is the limited range of the vocalist, he has the expected whiny sound to him but he never really hits any other sound besides that.
What would “popcore” be without it’s fair share of breakdowns? Yes, there are a lot of breakdowns throughout the album, but it never hit’s the point where you dread hearing one. They sort them out well and put a pretty good distance in between. Instrumentally, the band does a very average job, the guitarists come up with some simple little riffs and chord moments in a few songs, but beyond that they really do nothing to impressive. One of the things that I found after a few listens of the album is that most of the songs sound exactly the same, there is rarely something that separates them from one another.
Yes, there are plenty of flaws to be heard on the debut album by Chunk! No Captain Chunk!, but here is a band that can learn from their mistakes and create a great comeback record at some point in the future. Besides all of the flaws, the band has created a fun and energetic album that is really easy to get into and fun to sing along with. I’m kind of upset that I like the album less now than I did on my first few listens, but I see this band doing bigger and better things in the future and for now, the energy and amount of fun is able to keep me into them until they hit that point.
