Hellogoodbye – Zombies! Aliens! Vampires! Dinosaurs!

I’m really behind on Hellogoodbye, that’s about all I can say about my history with the band. I never got around to downloading their free EP for some odd reason when Drive-Thru released it, and opted to watch Motion City Soundtrack over them when they were here at Warped Tour (much to my disappoint since my friends informed me that they put on an amazing, gimmicky live show). Still, I finally got off my lazy behind and took a look at the overly eccentric Zombies! Aliens! Vampires! Dinosaurs! album, and I must admit I regret avoiding the advice of my friends and not checking out the band earlier.

Zombies! Aliens! Vampires! Dinosaurs! is heavily synthesized, keyboard laden, pop-punk – and most importantly, it’s fun. It’s fun, entertaining, poppy, upbeat, and catchy; and sometimes those are the best types of CDs. It doesn’t ask the listener to do much, doesn’t force them to look deep into the metaphors and decipher the hidden meaning behind the carefully worded lyrics. Instead, it just gets the listener to intuitively bop their head and tap their foot as Forrest Kline switches from his effect-filled vocals to a more natural pop-punk delivery from song to song; and soon enough gets them to sing along with Kline too.

They kick it off with the danceable All Of Your Love, which sounds almost disco-like with the vocal effects and crazy keyboard melodies. Here (In Your Arms) follows it up in the same pattern, with a slightly more laid back and repetitive beat, but one that instantly gets emerged in your memory banks. They continue that trend for most of the album, switching it up a few times by eliminating the vocal effects on tracksStuck To You and Homewrecker. Oh, It Is Love is an acoustic ballad played slowly with the Kline by himself with a banjo before the full band comes in at the end. I Saw It On Your Keyboard is lead by, you guessed it, keyboard sound clips. And like all good pop-punk CDs, they close it our with a slow moving ballad, Two Weeks In Hawaii.

The lyrics aren’t anything new and exciting, just songs about love and the likes. Still, the music is just fun and immature, it’s almost impossible not to like them. Next time, I’ll take my friends advice and check them out, and I urge you to take mine and listen to Hellogoodbye so you too can discover just how insanely fun they are.