Inside Riot – The Glory Years

Inside Riot reminds me of Farewell. Not due to the music (Farewell and Inside Riot share slight similarities but to equate the two sounds with be an extremely far fetched comparison) but because of the connotation behind Farewell’s title. They wanted to make pop-punk fun again and, well, failed. Inside Riot, however, have succeeded in spades by focusing more on the punk side of the equation.

Harkening back to the glory days (pun intended) of the Epitaph sound, Inside Riot are a skate-punk band with a melodic edge. They pull in elements of The Flatliners (especially Monumental) in the title track which helps cement the band into modern times rather than just focusing on the style’s past successors. Featuring slight nods to newer acts like Set Your Goals and Marathon but with equal influence from Osker and Lifetime, Inside Riot take the best of all generations to form a powerful skate punk album. Sharp, Wilhelm Scream-like guitar riffs play over a fast paced drum beat that gets the blood pumping and the circle pits a-running fill up ever nook and cranny of the album and it gets hard not to become energized by the execution of it all.

With portions of Living With Lions meeting Ryan’s Home, the vocals are smooth and passionate. Finely produced, they carry with them the urge for the listener to sing along with them like the best Face To Face songs around.

As hinted at by the title, The Glory Years works off a plane of nostalgia – harkening back to the good old days when you had no responsbilities other than hanging with friends. However, instead of simply sitting in the past, Inside Riot looks forward as well, taking the lessons learned from past mistakes and figuring out the best ways to keep going on (which generally involves doing whatever the fuck they want to). It’s just like they say in Life Is Too Short: “Fuck your life lessons / We will not listen to anyone / Not Anymore / The road we apved ourselves has cracked a long way / and there’s not reason to refrain”.

As each song on The Glory Years plays through, I’m immediately reminded of other skate-punk bands and smile. Then I pump my fist in the air, sing along, let loose and have fun.