Album Review: Taken Days – Every Second

California’s Taken Days recently released their debut full length “Every Second” via Wiretap Records that follows on from 2018’s “Ten More Miles” EP and 2017’s “Nowhere Slowly” EP, other than confirming the band’s home turf and the words “pop punk staple” are mentioned I don’t have much else to go on, although these two factors immediately bring a certain sound to mind from the glory days when pop punk stalked the earth and the likes of Blink-182, The Offspring and Green Day suddenly found themselves playing arena tours and California was briefly the centre of musical world.

I know that in some quarters pop punk has become a tarnished term, but before you discount “Every Second” just spin the first track “How’d It Come To This“, an infectious energised chugging pop punk anthem with all the hooks and energy you could wish for, add some Skiba-esque woahs and you have a perfect recipe for some classic pop punk. Every track on “Every Second” hits the spot, this is an album of twelve three to four minute pop punk anthems, each of which could be a single such is the consistency across the album. Refreshingly they also skip the clichés, there is no yearning acoustic track to spoil the flow of the album, although if you want your fix of that the slow burning and heartfelt finalè of ‘Sometimes‘ will tick that box.

Regardless of the lyrical content pop punk tends towards the uplifting, and Taken Days are no exception, on “Every Second” the band have taken a sound that has become formulaic and given it a much needed shot in the arm, something we are all hoping for in the coming months, whilst keeping all the familiar elements we all know and love present and correct, to paraphrase a term from forty years ago and from the opposite end of the punk spectrum, pop punks not dead. “Every Second” is not so much a pop punk staple, rather it’s a modern classic that should reaffirm the faith of even the most jaded former pop punk junkie.

“Every Second” is available through Bandcamp and on vinyl via Wiretap Records.