Handguns – Don’t Bite Your Tongue

There are clearly people out there that feel a strong connection to this kind of punk-lite stuff. Saves The Day, The Wonder Years, and countless others have been banking on it for a while now, and Handguns seems right in step with all of it. While groups like Direct Hit infuse a sense of crazed glee into their songs (while still falling firmly under the umbrella of pop punk), Handguns are the type of guys that rely way more on traditional pop as a backbone – musically and lyrically. It’s a much, much more saccharine-heavy listen.

But honestly, as a high school kid or something, I can understand the appeal here – the band’s energetic, and the lyrics are full of proclamations about, you know, thinking for yourself and standing up for your beliefs and all that. It all seems very exciting until you realize there’s not a whole lot actually being said. So while Don’t Bite Your Tongue is certainly chock full of youthful exuberance, and the band knows how to craft a hook, the template itself seems incredibly familiar. Fat guitars, snotty vocals with nice backups and the occasional palm mute or bass-and-drum section; they’re competent, like most of the bands of this ilk are, but sheesh, this shit gets played out quick.

Still, a song like “Best Excuse”, with it’s nearly solemn bass-and-vocals intro, shows that these guys are capable of potentially one day writing something really great. Probably. But for the most part, Don’t Bite Your Tongue is stale and predictable and, as a result, shot through with very few surprises. Oh, actually, wait. Writing a song called “I Hope He Kills You” about an ex-girlfriend came as a surprise. A vengeful, shitty, violent surprise, but whatever. You can write all you want about learning to be honest about your feelings and standing up for yourself and shit, dude, but you might want to reconsider that song title.