If there’s anything I love more than blissfully unaware pop-punk, it’s pop-punk that is bitingly self-aware. When bands actually take a second to step outside of the weirdly Peter Pan syndrome kind of lyrics that are based around half-baked metaphors about their friends and how bad they want to leave the suburbs that have become just as much a part of their identity as the desire to “escape,” it’s usually rewarding. One listen to Nerve Clinic‘s hugely infectious new song, “The Pattern,” is proof enough of this concept.
The band has been around for a minute– forming in 2011, which in case you forgot, was right around the time that pop-punk was the genre in alternative rock and bands clung to that label until it started to feel like a dirty word again. Bands like The Wonder Years, Fireworks, and Man Overboard were strewn across every Five-Star notebook and Tumblog as far as the eye could see…until one day they weren’t. Most bands broke-up and those who didn’t opted for a sound that fits more the mold of the emo-revival that was on the brink of exploding– not Nerve Clinic. This is a band that really believes in the music they make and have kept their nose to the grind working on songs packed with enough passion to make the biggest of skeptics a believer and hooks so huge they’ll make your heart flutter.
On “The Pattern,” Nerve Clinic is sharply aware of how tired the same escapist lyrics sound, especially coming from men approaching their 30’s. The verses are viper-tongued jabs at the kind of lyrics that kids clung to in pop-punks heyday like “I’m an artifact now/I always plan on getting out/pin me on the wall because I keep on slowing down” and “I’m almost just a 30-something that can’t keep track of money that I spend” that are built around a chorus of “I don’t pay my taxes/Sometimes I have wine instead of breakfast/to fill that void and kill the pounding in my head.” Okay, but same (well, not really, but wine for breakfast sounds like a bandwagon that I would be happy to hop on.)
I’m so excited to share the lyric video for this new song with y’all! The video can be seen above.”The Pattern” comes from Nerve Clinic, which is out February 16th on Hidden Home Records. Snag your copy here.
