7YEARSBADLUCK – Sleep Now Pay Later

Listening to 7YEARSBADLUCK, I’m brought back to 2003 and the first time I listened to The Lawrence Arms’s The Greatest Story Ever Told as Sleep Now, Pay Later may very well be that album of 2011.

While somewhat different than The Lawrence Arms, Sleep Now Pay Later still has enough similarities to warrant that glowing comparison. Most notably is the use of two songwriters with distinctively different voices. The two have their own unique writing style and that comes through in the variation of the songs in the same way that you can hear the Brendan Kelly penned or Chris McCaughan’s written songs on The Greatest Story Ever Told. No More Drinking is the faster, snottier Kelly-influenced tune while Smoke could very well be mistaken for McCaughan’s The Raw And Searing Flesh.

These aren’t the only songs to split the difference. Dreams works as another Brendan Kelly comparison, only with some Fenix TX influences too and the immensely catchy Roll The Dice is yet another McCaughan tune. When they merge the two, like on The Fever, they really begin to hit their stride.

The Lawrence Arms aren’t 7YEARSBADLUCK’s sole influence though. Saving A Whale has elements of mid-to-late nineties Green Day or MXPX. There are other moments that rekindle lost memories of Jupiter Sunrise and others of Alkaline Trio or American Steel. Whatever it is though, one thing’s for certain is that 7YEARSBADLUCK  is reviving the pop-punk world of the turn of the century.

Considering they’re from Austria, it’s unlikely I’ll ever get the chance to see 7YEARSBADLUCK live; which is unfortunate because I can’t help but imagine that would be a fantastic pop-punk live show.