Remember why you fell in love with music? Whether the beat inspired a dance, the lyrics matched your thoughts or the chords made you play, music is a gift that comes to all of us for one reason or another. I won’t bore you with the drawn out story behind my love of the art, I will only say that I Call Fives’ Someone That’s Not You reminds me of a lot of those reasons.
This EP dropped in my inbox last night and instead of sleeping once I got a seat during the morning commute, I turned on “Someone That’s Not You” and all I wrote in my notebook was a simple, yes. The build-up to the pop punk vocals shook me awake and while I missed out on a good 30 minute nap, I wasn’t mad about it. It was nothing short of perfectly placed moments throughout as I tapped my pen on the seat, probably annoying the hell out of the lady who was in dreamland, oh well.
I was actually waiting for this one since my chat with Drew of I Call Fives late last year when he mentioned they’d be working with Paul Levitt, who Drew had taken notice of because of his work on All Time Low’s Put Up Or Shut Up. An EP that Drew was quick to claim was “probably one of the better pop punk EPs.” Well Drew, I think you have the tools on Someone That’s Not You to be in that category, at least for 2012.
You can definitely hear some vocal similarities between ICF’s Jeff Todd and ATL’s Alex Gaskarth in their version of Third Eye Blind’s “How It’s Gonna Be.” But to tell you the truth, I didn’t even realize I was in the presence of a cover until the chorus kicked in. Usually covers are my favorite thing in the world…But I Call Fives shifted my love to their acoustic “Lakeview.” Anyone who is familiar with Hit The Lights’ This is a Stick Up… Don’t Make it a Murder knows the music sounds like pop punk Hershey Kisses, but listen closely and the lyrics are actually bitter tales. That’s this song, exactly, well actually the whole EP, but this song is just so darn amazing. Yeah, darn.
I was having a horrible week, but like I Call Fives says in my jam “I’ll save revenge for another day” because Someone That’s Not You put me in a chipper mood and took me back to when I really fell in love with music in my awkward middle school years. It’s heartache rolled up in pop punk goodness that will have fans of All Time Low (pre-Dirty Work) and England’s All Or Nothing adding something new to their collection.
You can have Someone That’s Not You on the 20th day of March, which so happens to be the date the first of five days they’ll be headlining on the Pure Noise Records Tour. And where else can you find them? Well Warped Tour of course! If they promise to play “Lakeview” I’ll be at every SoCal stop.
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