Remember the feeling you got when you listened to
blink-182's
Dude Ranch right before the snotty southern California three-piece blew up all over the mainstream? That's the same mood this Minneapolis quartet is producing, minus the juvenile lyrics. The harmonies, melodies, and guitar parts are dead ringers for early
blink-182 and
Green Day material, back when they had a few harder parts but still knew how to throw the hooks in with some intelligence. Lyrically,
These Liquid Lungs is more up the
Jawbreaker alley of punk, utilizing more subtlety than many of their punk and emo brethren.
Cadillac Blindside never falls back into the romantic, beautiful territory that
Blake Schwarzenbach penned in his time with
Jawbreaker; nevertheless, what they write and perform they do very well. This 13-song LP is by far their best work, but what's most unfortunate is that at a time when things started to truly click for these three men and one woman, they disbanded (after this album's release). ~ Kurt Morris