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Kept

Detours And Sidetracks EP

Written by: TL on 01/05/2011 16:32:30

I apologize dear readers, for once again, real life has kept me from you for far too long. Today is meant to correct this, and my first article goes out to those of you who have love for the way pop-punk sounded back in the early days of Green Day and Blink 182, before any of them achieved mega-stardom. The subject is "Detours And Sidetracks", the second EP by Swedish quartet Kept, and simply put, it is a six track disc filled to the brim with bright guitar melodies, snotty punk-rock vocals and songs that all come at you at high speed.

The songs range from 1:25 to 3:22 in length, and while the mentioned vocals allows for the comparison to early Green Day, there are hints littered around the different tracks that suggest more influences are in play. The longest track "Erased" for instance, starts out with some frantic guitar-action that smells like NOFX, while the guitar in "Used And Abused"'s chorus reminds me somewhat of Millencolin's classic "Happiness For Dogs"... Which could be why that one is the easiest for me to remember?

And speaking of remembering things, it occurs to me while listening to "Detours And Sidetracks", that memorability is the one area that needs the most work, because the sheer enjoyment factor is one Kept have already mastered. You'll easily be compelled to rock out while listening to the songs on offer, but you'll just as easily forget them all too soon after they end. I'm thinking that doing some work on the vocals, which are rather samey, could help with the hooks in the future. Should Kept figure it out, there's nothing to say that they can't end up taking us on some great trips around their landscape of influences, just as their countrymen in Future Idiots recently did. For the moment, "Detours And Sidetracks" is merely a fun record, which you'll enjoy if you get to hear it, yet probably not revisit all that often in the future.

Download: Used and Abused, Erased
For The Fans Of: old Green Day, old Blink 182, old Millencolin, Future Idiots
Listen: myspace.com/keptpunk

Release Date January 2011
**Self-Released**