Amber Pacific – The Turn

For a band with only a handful of releases, Washington pop-punk act Amber Pacific has gone through more than their fair share of lineup changes.  The most significant being the departure of lead vocalist Matt Young to pursue a career in education and welcoming the band’s new voice with Jesse Cottam.  But things seem to come and go in cycles, and Amber Pacific has gone full circle with Young returning to the lineup after a six-year absence.  Not surprisingly, the band’s latest full length, The Turn, has the most in common with their earlier discography.

Fans will likely embrace this return to the familiar.  Their fourth studio album feels like a blast from the past – like something you’d have expected to find on one of the supporting stages of the Warped Tour circa 2004.  Amber Pacific make the now classic sound that so many likeminded bands have distorted and tainted with over production, sound so easy.  The Turn comes filled with straightforward catchy melodies and hooky choruses in a pleasingly middle of the road package.  The best moments tug at listeners’ heartstrings with the lure of well executed nostalgia.  Opener “Undone” features the vocal support of MxPx front man Mike Herrera amidst the familiar don’t-look-back drumming of like-minded 90’s pop-punk legacy acts.  It’s clean, catchy and simple, and makes for one heck of an entrance.

As a whole though, the album tends to live more in the early 00’s, with most tracks following a pop-rock formula reminiscent of the Drive Thru Records glory days of The Early November, Finch and The Starting Line.  Songs like “Young Love,” “When I Found You” and “I’ll Beat The Odds” inject the right combination of sappy melody, vocal precision to instrumental purpose to overcome what at times could have come across as a cheesy, played-out formula.  

One of the only slight downfalls to the album comes in the track “Next To Me (feat. Dianne Westcott),” in which Amber Pacific makes an unexpected transformation into something of a worship band.  The band has never been shy as to their Christian overtones, although they tend to define themselves as a pop-rock band that just so happens to be made up of Christian performers – much like MxPx.  But when placed against the other nine quick paced tunes, the combination of chiming bells and female guest vocals just sound as if they should be performing at one of those big box churches at the tail end of a sermon.  It’s not “bad,” just really out of place.

Looking back, I wasn’t terribly crazy about Amber Pacific in the early 00’s, but The Turn turns back the clock ten years and captures a little bit of the last decade’s lightning in a bottle.  Taken as a whole, The Turn isn’t all that remarkable and is a pretty average entry into the master pop-punk narrative, but Amber Pacific execute the disc with such breezy confidence, that some listeners may still connect strongly.