Shorelines – The Scars, The Scrapes, The Stories

One can usually tell if an independent band has heart from even before the first listen.  Everything from track names to album art and website presentation tells a lot about a band’s intensions.  So when I first ran across the cover art and squeaky-clean production value of Detroit’s Shorelines’ premier EP, The Scars, The Scrapes, The Stories, I could tell the band believed in their work.  Admittedly, the content fell a little too close to that typically overly polished brand of pop punk I try avoiding, but their presentation and energy convinced me to give them the benefit of the doubt.

And I’m glad I did, because what followed holds a lot of promise.  Specifically, the band’s lyrical insight really stands out.  Hailing from one of the hardest hit locations in the great, seemingly never ending recession of 2009, Detroit, Shorelines displays a sense of holding onto optimism in tough times.  Tracks like “My Friends” project hopefulness by focusing on the power of relationships with lines like “there’s a fine line between friendship and family” after describing how people find themselves in dark places when they don’t let others in.  The real clincher comes with “Never Enough,” a four-minute track about keeping one’s head held high, and eyes focused on what really matters.  Matt Boljestic sings “it’s a fact, we still laugh when the living is low; no, there’s never enough to sweat or stress about, pinching and pulling your pennies along the way… we still find good times through friendship.”  As someone currently job hunting in a seemingly jobless market, I couldn’t agree more.

Despite the great lyrical focus, the EP also holds plenty of room for improvement.  As previously mentioned, musically Shorelines falls into that polished school of pop punk, and on some tracks subsequently fall victim to a very predictable formula.  The album opens on a particularly weak note with “Keep the Change,” which instantly invites comparisons with some of the more generic offerings from bands like The Starting Line.  The sound might feel natural, but the result doesn’t offer anything particularly gripping.  Thankfully the album sees steady improvements from there on, particularly thanks to stronger drumbeats and thicker bass work.

Overall, Shorelines offers a pleasant break from the usual, having produced a debut portraying them as an articulate, well intended young band with a solid foundation.  Furthermore, the EP touches on themes most mainstream pop punkers typically avoid – opting to go with uplifting, meaningful themes, rather than clichéd tales of obnoxious girlfriends and would-be flings (ie. Fall Out Boy).  With so many people feeling the current financial crunch, they would be well advised to give The Scars, The Scrapes, The Stories a listen to lighten the mood.