Left Out Skippy
S/T DemoEP
Self-released

For the kids and by the kids, Left Out Skippy throws down a rough demo release of aggressive rock songs. The younger four-piece band plays a style of music popular amongst white, suburban youth that is not quite punk and not quite metal, but something sort of fun in between. These are the bands you would see at house parties in first apartments or when parents are away and there is a mix of jocks, skaters, rats, burn-outs, and whatever other not, quite forgotten high-school clique finding something they like within the heavy guitar riffs and fast-paced rhythm.

"Untitled" opens this demo with vagrant style and a short guitar intro quickly launches into a pop-punk mixture of rumbling bass, distorted guitar chords, and snapping snare drum with cymbal ride. Complimenting the naive, but solid songs that J, Jack, Nathan, and Scott have created are the occasional dual vocals. Backing a chorus lyric of "I've told her a thousand times / That if she ever needed a ride / I’d be there on the side of the road / Waiting in my car to take her where she wants to go" is the simple, old-school repeated punk gibe "Hey, hey!"

On "Don’t Say" LOS take a stab at the always-appreciated teen topic of breaking up. Among the always present metal guitar driven distortion and cymbal crashes, are bass line only breaks in which someone is singing "Honestly, I'm starting to figure it out / Words you said shed light on what you had planned / Truth be known, I said it's said and done / Regrettably, I never found out why." The Jackson, Michigan band refers to themselves as a punk/rock/emo band and the songs on this demo substantiate this description. They really are a mixture of all three genres with no clear indication of embracing one over the other, but deciding instead to just have fun for now by making it loud and fast.

File Under: "punk/rock/emo"

RIYL: local "punk/rock/emo" bands that are someday hoping to sound like better known "punk/rock/emo" bands