Monikers
Eat Your Young
7
Okay, first a warning: most of you will have no interest in this band whatsoever. In fact, unless you’re down with not-so-aggressive, hooky punk rock, then this will grate the shit out of your metal-callused ears. A lot of you should be hitting your back buttons right about now.
Now that most of the readership is gone, we proud few can get down to business. Those of you who are left over will likely have at least heard of the eminently enjoyable and sadly defunct Floridian punk act Discount, and Monikers features former Discount member Ryan Seagrist on vocals and guitars. Seagrist and his new band ply a predictable—but definitely entertaining—brand of gritty, spare pop punk that lifts tricks from the likes of Jawbreaker and Broadways, as well as the aforementioned Discount.
It’s certainly charming music, and Eat Your Young’s brief twelve-minute run time is just long enough to satisfy but short enough to capitalize on the simple nature of the music. As always, this type of punk swings entirely on hook-craft, and though Seagrist’s raspy but reliable singing voice delivers some well-placed melodies, the most memorable part of these songs is often the guitar work. Not that Seagrist or second guitarist Mark Bonner are technical geniuses, mind—they rely on meat-and-taters power chords more often than not—but their innate melodic sensibilities and the occasional well-placed arpeggio go far.
Eat Your Young is raw and simplistic enough to sound almost tossed off, and indeed the Monikers bio claims (perhaps jokingly) that the band has only practiced together ten times or so. Fortunately that suits their purposes quite well—this style of punk is far more appealing in a gritty, rough’n’ready format than it is when heavily polished. Recommended to those (two or three) of you who will even admit to liking pop punk.
