Transit – Listen and Forgive

Picture a 21 year old dot com millionaire who is sporting a wild hipster uniform consisting of large thick rimmed glasses, a large pompadour and excessively tight skinny jeans. Now imagine him sitting in a room full of middle aged millionaire men in freshly pressed business suits and crew cuts. While all of these men have proven themselves as experts in the business field, chances are that the young guy did things his own way and took chances that would appall the older men. While Transit has been lumped into the pop punk genre, they stand out from their peers like the young entrepreneur.

Their roots are still visible, but the band has definitely grown beyond the constraints of the genre. The title track is the most obvious pop punk song on the album and it shows why they are too often lumped into the New Found Glory gang. But elsewhere the band exhibits their maturity, with more complex guitar work, intelligent lyrics and angular rhythms. The band reworks a previously released track, 1978, adding a pop sheen that successfully updates the sound. On Cutting Corners, they move at high speed with a catchy punk song. First single Long Lost Friends sticks in your head and helps to introduce the breakup theme of the album, with lyrics like “lately you’ve been looking at me like you’ve seen a ghost & isn’t it obvious whose missing who the most.” They slow it down on Skipping Stones, a harmony laden acoustic tinged song that is reminiscent of Bayside. When vocalist Joe Boynton sings lines like “we grow into those sadder songs and leave our love behind in every line,” he shows a lyrical prowess that surpasses the pop punk tradition of awkward teenage poetry and Blink style poop jokes. The musical growth of the band is matched by the evolution of their lyrics, which lean towards emo. Former Fall Out Boy vocalist Patrick Stump makes a cameo on All Your Heart, but it is far from a rip off of his previous band’s music. Instead the song balances the technical sound of Transit as a frame for his recognizable voice, which will appeal to both fans and haters of Fall Out Boy.

The blending of pop punk and indie emo sounds helps separate Transit from the current flood of pop punk bands. Moneen and Lifetime references are inevitable and well deserved. While some of their long time fans were initially put off by their change in direction, after multiple listens to the album, it becomes clear that Transit have released one of the best pop punk albums this year. They may look and sound different from the other pop punk bands in the business, but they definitely deserve to be at the table.