Handguns – Angst

Harrisburg Pennsylvania pop-punk group Handguns has been kicking around for a few years now.  Best described as harmless, the band subscribes to the brand of pop-punk recently re-popularized by the strength of The Wonder Years and mimicked by the likes of I Call Fives, etc…

Their sophomore full length, Angst, comes a short year after their forgettable Pure Noise Records debut, Don’t Bite Your Tongue.  While still sonically predictable and living in the shadow of their inspirations, the album evidences early signs of growth, although it’s a tough call whether or not it saves the disc from sharing its predecessor’s fate.

That the album is titled Angst should make clear that Handguns’ target audience is an emotional group of teens or young adults.  It’s tough to fault an album that’s so explicit with its intentions, but it also means that your enjoyment will likely be tied to your current life situation.  As an alumnus of the “wallowing in my own self pity” stage who has since joined the ranks of career and family focused North Americans, many of the band’s themes resonate in memory, but fall flat in making a meaningful current connection.  So while I can understand that those in a state of becoming might make a connection with songs like “Long October” and statements like “Bouncing Souls of my speakerphones, hard for walking all alone, walking back and forth all alone from six to four, metal floors cold concrete floor” (a scene reminiscent of the lifeless commute to my gloomy university), they lack a profound connection that describes anything beyond an egocentric fixation on the present.

Musically Angst runs with the pack and could be mistaken for any number of its contemporaries (ie. State Camps, Such Gold, Major League, and so on).  Youthful and innocent, Handguns sounds excited to just be a part of the present scene without challenging the status quo.  Songs like “The War At Home” combine a traditional sense of whiny vocals and backing supports so clean they could have been spit shined.  The harmonies tend to repeat themselves across a variety of tracks, from opener “Porch Light” to forgettable filler like “Still Running Away,” the chorus-verse-chorus format means you’d be lucky to notice where you are in the track listing.  The best songs are certainly the most aggressive, with the crash-bang, skate-punk leaning drumming of closer “Where I Belong” injecting some well-paced personality.

“Trying to get fired so I won’t have to quit, don’t want to spend my nights working the graveyard shift… I’m calling this early retirement” – if you connect with these lines because you work a dead-end job or at a fast-food chain, then you’ll probably connect pretty well with Angst, or at least “Early Retirement.”  That being said, when you get your life in order and move on, I doubt you’ll be returning to Handguns and declaring them a modern classic.  In fact you’ll probably look back and realize just how important that job was at developing your work ethic and in preparing you for the demands of the modern workplace.

When all is said and done, Handguns represent an egocentric view of growing up, and a very real one for anyone identifying with that stage.  It’s just a shame that there isn’t anything beyond face value – like the careful introspection presented by genre leaders The Wonder Years.  So while I won’t be returning to Angst any time soon, I recognize that Handguns is somewhat of a necessary evil, although I should make clear that it’s a middle of the road one at best.