-Greg’s Take-

Remember the glory days of So-Cal punk rock? Oh man, the great times when Green Day wasn’t serious and a blonde with an attitude grabbed the nation’s attention by singing about spiderwebs.

Good, now stop reminiscing and listen up. There’s a new player in the game and the trail is being blazed once again by a riotous sound of modern punk/rock you can actually get behind.

“You Jest!” you say?

Nay, I speak truth friend and I hope you’re hungry; we’ve got a record to eat. Easy to digest and every taste as memorable as the last, hope is alive for punk/rock and it comes in the form of Dallas’ own Fairbanks.

The Texas trio unleash their power punk precision on the world with Eat This Record. The five track modern punk sound is as comforting as those we held onto tightly decades ago, yet fresh enough to leave me wondering if we’re bound to have a recurrence of the aforementioned brain pounding style. I’ve never thought punk was dead, only bought out; looking at you Billie Joe Armstrong. But the fact that Fairbanks is stepping up with Eat This Record, and it is being released by the fiercely impressive independent label Urban Scandal Records has me thinking the masses are reclaiming what is rightfully theirs.

The album is jam-packed with anthematic punk, crash/snare driven beats and enough slick riffs to have you breaking out that old Dookie shirt. Austin Carroll, Keaton Khonsari and Austin Waymire have made a believer out of me. “Stoney Hollow,” “Distilled Manx” and well hell, every track is as fun as it is honest. There is no mistaking these three know what they’re doing and they’re poised for greatness. Eat This Record can be found in really any format, but I feel this urge to get my hands on it on tape. Listening to this on repeat, as I’ve been doing for several days now, has me longing for that faded sound I used to love when I wore out an album. And when it fades, I’ll buy it again and again.

Arise fellow punk rock fans, for today we pledge allegiance to the resurgence of the sound that played out our summer days and made us feel alive. We shall stand tall and waive the flag of Fairbanks. No more will we long for what was. Today, our sound lives loud and proud.