American Hi-Fi – Acoustic

Boston’s American Hi-Fi are about as pop punk as it’s possible to be without being purely pop, two of the members play for Miley Cyrus if you need evidence of just how close to pop they are sailing, but I’ll try not to hold that against them. American Hi-Fi Acoustic is, in case you hadn’t guessed, an acoustic version of their eponymous debut album that was released in 2001, and there’s not much more to say about it. If you are a fan of this band, or liked that album, then this will be a pleasant wander down memory lane but I really don’t see the point of this track by track reworking.

The Problem with American Hi-Fi, and a lot of the more commercial pop punk bands, is that they don’t seem to have an identity, at times during this I wasn’t sure if I was still listening to American Hi-Fi Acoustic and had to check that my computer hadn’t mysteriously skipped to something by Bowling For Soup. This is inoffensive and rather bland background music, if I had to pick a song from this it would Flavour Of The Weak, but that would also be the song I would pick from original release. Alkaline Trio showed us how to make an acoustic album when they released Damnesia a few years ago, as that brought something new to the songs, this doesn’t.