When you first pop in this debut full length from the All-American Rejects, you will hear a softer side with vocals and some light instruments.  Something that bands do often to intro a song or even a whole cd, but as soon as it kicks in, you know that you’re hooked.

To give you a brief background, the All-American Rejects are actually only two guys, though they play with a band live.  This means that you actually hear some cool drum machine parts.  Now you’ve gotta think that adding a drum machine to a band of this nature wouldn’t make the best fit- because it kind of takes away from that live drum kit element that most bands have- but it actually fits the AAR very well.  I think that if they had a drum kit and not a drum machine on the parts where you could very much tell the snares and bass drum were electronically generated, then this wouldn’t be nearly as good as it is. 

So what is the music like? Upbeat  Happy songs about girls with lyrics like, “My lips are sealed for her”.  Poppy.  Fun.  Very fun.  Think of an indie rock/pop punk sort of feel that has acoustic guitar sounds thrown in with- at times- New End Original sounding vocals.  People are going to hear this and get hooked, there’s no doubt about that in my mind.  When this cd drops, you’re going to be looking at a band to elevate themselves to that next level ala the Get Up Kids.

Through these eleven tracks there isn’t even a dull song.  From start to end, I enjoy this cd because, hey, sometimes music does need to be upbeat and fun.   Sometimes you need to just crank this out, drive and say, hey, life is good.

I’ve heard that “Swing Swing” is on a sampler somewhere, but it’s still one of my favorite songs on here next to “Too Far Gone”.  “One More Sad Song” actually starts off with and sounds very much like the Schatzi song (just this one riff) “The Spider Smells Disaster”.   I also enjoy the acoustic quality of “Why Worry”.  And they almost have an appeal that I would like to pop sensation Evan and Jared, if anyone even remembers who they were.

All I know is, when I first heard this, my initial reaction was- this is going to be huge.  Don’t be surprised if I’m not wrong.