The Front Bottoms "Self Titled" CD

A punk band that uses acoustic guitar, indie-rock dance grooves, Springsteen-y keyboard lines (this they might deny). It’s hook filled, it’s anthemic, it’s confessional. Maybe Neil Young by way of Green Day? The Front Bottoms must have heard some Replacements along the way and it seems like what Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers did for the Boston suburbs these guys are doing for Bergen County, NJ Their songs are filled with rich hooks and clever rhythms, they string riffs together effortlessly into surprising song structures. Take a song like “Maps.” It opens with half a Sex Pistols riff before going into an orchestral flourish on keyboards. Then there’s a verse complete with a hillbilly hiccup in the vocal followed by an arpeggio guitar part and full-on raging synthetic strings that lurch into handclaps and an enigmatic chorus “one day you’ll be washing yourself with hand soap in a public bathroom,” And that’s in the first minute and a half of the song.