Album Review: Summer Bones by Hit the Lights

Have the pop-punk stalwarts impressed on album #4? HELL YEAH THEY HAVE. "Eternal underdogs Hit The Lights have returned with an album full of fighting talk and swinging fists. The Ohio pop-punks are on their finest form in years here, with ‘Fucked Up Kids’ proving a punchy, vicious opening for the 27 minutes that follow. They don’t let up either; ‘Revolutions And Executions’ packs a career-best chorus, while album closer ‘Old Friend’ shows frontman Nick Thompson at his most honest, gentle best.

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Released in 2012, Invicta saw the Ohio-based emocore unit batten down the hatches and jettison whatever lo-fi skatepunk detritus was left from its early days in favor of a more pure, radio-driven pop feel. Summer Bones, the band's fourth studio long-player and first outing for Pure Noise Records, effectively seals the deal, offering up an 11-track set of slickly produced, earworm-heavy, festival-ready singalongs shot through with enough good old-fashioned punk/hardcore spirit to make the transition easy for old-schoolers looking for a respite from breakdown town. Similar in tone to bands like Sleeping with Sirens and the Story So Far, Hit the Lights have no interest in wallowing in the oft-excavated pit of youthful despair; rather, they exist in a sort of amped-up, devil-may-care vacuum of good-times/bad-times soul-searching that leans more heavily toward the former.

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