Album Review: American Television – Watch It Burn

A debut album from a band that have by all accounts been on the go since 2013, American Television are a 4 piece out of Washington DC and have now signed to Wiretap Records they release this their 1st venture into the album world with Watch It Burn  on January 24th.

Let’s start with what the band have to say.

“Watch It Burn, is about things getting worse. In a world where selfishness and corruption still reign supreme, we can’t help but be angry. It feels like we’re regressing towards a misguided and idealized past. Corporations continue to treat workers like machines, and the gap between the haves and have-nots has widened. For us, that anger turned into 10 gritty, pop-laden punk songs.”

And yes pop laden punk songs are what you get, and them some!

Lets start at the end, but then is this actually the beginning, “Great Divide” a song that doesn’t just touch on the scourge of so many other countries of the world, the divide between rich and poor that just grows and grows, this song alone gives this subject a voice the title says it so simply, this being released as the first single from the album it sets out their stall, yes this track musically does exactly what it says on the tin, Pop laden punk, but the message is not lost by this.

Now let’s get to the “and then some!” Bit.  Working for years building toward this 10 song piece of their lives has produced something more than your ordinary, take what is probably the most stand out track “Drinks” with its almost Tsunami Bomb opening, a bass laden, punk guitar driven classic in the making, its lyrical content holding up the ethos of the album and smashing it out into the world where it should b

“Misprint” is another song that has you as a long standing punk, knowingly get, and it has all the musical highlights that pull this whole album together, an opening as simplistic as you can get, leading in with a strong vocal then hitting you with a sound that hangs on the precipice, almost falling into hardcore but balances this with just enough melody to not loose its way.

If your’e a fan of bands like Anti-Flag or Rational Anthem take them as the bread and American Television as the filling that glues it together, no this isn’t a literary masterpiece of an analogy but its all ya getting.

Punk started as a fight back to the injustices of the world, the fight still needs fighting and American Television are right there front and centre!

Get the 12″ Orange Vinyl from Wiretap Records

Check out the bands Bandcamp