Avail – Front Porch Stories

Fat Wreck Chord‘s Avail has a power punk sound, like a lot of the bands on the label. Front Porch Stories is the bands 6th in studio release and the second on Fat Wreck, it has 12 good old fashion punk rock songs on it for you to enjoy.

Avail open the album up with Black And Red. It opens with a long swipe of the guitar making a slow metallic noise to introduce the song. Then the drums and bass and guitar all join in together to make a great punk sound, and then with Tim Barry on vocals, you get a feel for a good old punk band, unlike the hundreds of pop-punk around today. Generally, I liked this song and it is an incredible way to open the album with, it really gives you a feel for the band.

Track 6, Done Reckoning, opens up with a great beat which has a mixture of guitar and drum cymbals,  and then the vocals come in nice and strong. Throughout the entire song there is a steady drum beat. Although being quite a short song (1:42), the song is a really good one, catchy vocals and amazing riffs, it is one of my favorites on the album. East On Main comes up next. This once again is an incredible punk song. It starts off fast paced, but then slows down every once in a while in an effective way. The chorus is nice, slow and catchy. East On Main is definitely my second favorite song, it displays a slight difference in the musical style of Avail, slightly slower then the most, while keeping the punk feel.

Skipping ahead to track 9, we hear Subdued And Arrested. It starts of slow with a steady bass solo. The vocals join in, keeping the pace nice and slow. The entire song is slower then the rest of the album, which gives off a powerful feel to it. It is my favorite song on the album, and just simple put, powerful and incredible. The Falls is the second  last song on the 12 song album (hence, it is track 11). It is about remembering the old times and looking forward to the upcoming adventures. It is a good punk song which a spectacular melody and feel. A very impressive song.

Other songs on the album that deserve a mention are those like Gravel to Dirt, Versus and You. It is a good punk rock album, the only downside is that some of songs sound similar to each other.