Comeback Kid – Broadcasting…

Comeback Kid is important to me. They were one of the few bands that ushered me into the hardcore scene. It’s kind of weird to look back and remember getting “Turn It Around” a few months after it came out, and now, four years later, I find myself with their newest release, Broadcasting. Now I’ve read a few reviews of this cd and people who listened to the older albums seem to be stunned that the vocalist’s voice has changed so much on this album. This is mainly due to the fact that it’s a different vocalist, and who better to fill the shoes of the recently departed Scott Wade? None other than Andrew Neufeld, who was playing guitar for CBK, but others may know him as the vocalist of Figure Four. Now this still comes up a bit short of Figure Four coming off of it’s hiatus, but in light of Figure Four being one of my favorite bands of all time(mainly due to Andrew’s fantastic vocals), I was fairly content with this line-up change.

As you might imagine, this means that the band sounds quite different(not just the vocals). They’ve retained their sections dedicated to starting up circle pits and pile-on’s and of course it’s not lacking in riffs that I’m sure will spur some throwing down and two-stepping(that is, if you’re seeing them play, being that a pile-on is difficult to do if you’re only listening to this with a couple friends). The music is composed much better, with leads that mesh perfectly with the rhythm guitar and bass lines. From what I remember, the former CBK albums always lacked double-kicking drum patterns(my favorite) but this one just might have them, at the very least the drum patterns were a perfect match for the rest of the band. Plus, as I mentioned earlier, Andrew on vocals can be so reminiscent of Figure Four, I don’t feel as cheated when I realize that I’ll probably never see that band play.

Speaking of live bands, Comeback Kid easily puts on some of the best shows I’ve witnessed. They come through Edmonton at least once a year and I always try to make it out to see them play. As it stands, the largest circle pit I’ve ever been in was at one of there shows, there was about 100-150 people in it, unfortunately a bunch of people who I will assume were drunk(shows simply should not have beer gardens) fell and caused the largest pile-up I’ve ever seen. What I’m getting at is I can’t wait to see them play again.

This leads me to my final point, if you consider yourself a fan of Comeback Kid(I know there’s a lot of you, this band has grown quite a bit) you won’t be disappointed with this album. The only thing I was disappointed about was how people are calling this “melodic hardcore” a term which has been skewed lately. When I think melodic hardcore, I think Dag Nasty or Kid Dynamite, although I’m sure there’s some influence from melodic hardcore bands, CBK doesn’t necessarily fall into that category(I think the fact that they play a lot of their songs in drop-d seals the deal, look it up if you don’t know what that means). But I digress, this is a very good album, buy it, you can probably find it anywhere, memorize the words, and go see CBK.