Album review: Various Artists – “Comp Punksylvania”

Features, Reviews

Sell The Heart Records – 01 Sep 2023

Ska S'mores and Punk Rock Campfires

To help celebrate this year's Camp Punksylvania, and have curated a 12 track compilation featuring artists performing at this year's event. The album is available here on 1 September. With several tracks that are 100% exclusive to this release, and others that are either rare or making their first appearance on a physical format TGEFM wanted to get in on the fun with this track by track review of the compilation.

This is 12 tracks of diverse sounds and energies all creating one cohesive story that says “Get your ass to Scranton, its time to go Camping.”  Sell The Heart Records has crafted the soundtrack to help you pack up your s'mores fixins, rummage for some kindling and pitch a patch-emblazoned tent.

– “Be One To No One” (Lose Your Delusion)
Dual vocals, shredding riffs, and a reference to Warren G? How the fuck can you not love this track?  When AWS returned last year after a lengthy hiatus, this was the single they put out to remind everyone that they haven't collected any rust in their time off.  It worked beautifully.  
As an album or compilation opener, it serves the ultimate purpose of getting the listener's heart rate racing. And the fretwork is so fire, you could smell the hair being singed off my ears.  

– “The Spine That Binds” (live)
A live track from one of the quintessential Warped Tour bands? Color me sold. Tsunami Bomb has always been one of the best live acts, brimming with energy and exuberance and steady handles of their instrument. This version of “The Spine That Binds” builds on that reputation, proving the band hadn't lost a step in their live game in their long absence.
The live recording of the title track off 2019's return album is a permanent reminder of the excitement of those first post-COVID shows. The merit of this recording is not in the performance itself but in the joy emanating off the musicians and their instruments and a palpable connection with the crowd. This track shows off the band's signature dual vocals, their dark joy and the musical precision that made them legends in the scene.

– Missing You [I Can't Wait)  – (previously released digitally only)
Saccharine punks The Dollyrots released the single, “Missing You (I Can't Wait)” back in June, but this is the first physical release of the Stevie Van Zandt produced cut.  Brimming with The Dollyrots' signature harmonies, powerful musicianship and sugar-high pop-punk sound, “Missing You” is the kind of song that is guaranteed to win new listeners and strengthen the love from longtime fans.
A full-on bop of a single that has me shivering in spasmodic glee at the prospect of seeing this performed when the trio takes the stage at Camp Punksylvania.  The song probably won't put hair on your chest but it will put a tingle in your bottom.  What a flipping delight!

Fat Heaven – Control The State (alternate take)
The Brooklyn-based punk-trio show up with an alternate take on “Control The State.” The track shows off the band's punchy and aggressive pop-punk.  Combining a driving bass and drum combination with gravelly sing-alongs, you are in for a 2 minute treat, a grimy and unabated treat that transports the listener directly to the center of a live show dog-pile.  

Working Class Stiffs – What Can I Say – (previously released digitally only)
Get down on the upbeat with this ska-core jam.  There's a reason Working class Stiffs is one of the bands the other Camp Punx bands are looking forward to.  They know how to make that ass shake and shoulders sway.  Its ska with a steroid injection.  I'd say it works but that would be an epic understatement, so perhaps instead I should let you know it fucking bops.

– “Ego” (unreleased)
So this is a track I wasn't necessarily looking forward to, the recorded band has never really been my thing.  I don't have a good reason, I just couldn't find joy in the few songs of theirs I've heard on releases. That said, I've only ever heard great things about the dudes in RCR and always had a killer times when I've seen them live.  I think its safe to say, I didn't love this track… but its also safe to say, it wasn't written for me and likely wasn't written for headphones, this is a song thats audience-ready, some tracks are just better in a live setting and I can't imagine “Ego” not getting the crowd moving.  Its got the signature River City Rebels sound, its aggressively fun, circle-pit ready and made more for a live audience than the record. More music should be made this way.   

– “Run” (alternate take)
There are few punk acts more campfire ready than Escape From The Zoo.  That was true before this stripped down (not slowed down) version of “Run” hit my eardrums.  I immediately felt as though I stumbled drunk into a moonlit field full of carnies between stops.  Put me so in the mood I could feel the s'more getting stuck in my beard and smell my piss extinguishing the campfire.  

Belvedere – “Comrade” (Featuring Roger Lima of Less Than Jake) (from Hindsight Is The Sixth Sense)
“Comrade” may be my favorite track of Hindsight Is The Sixth Sense.  Simply put its an ass-kicker.  A rousing call for unity against the divisiveness and polarizing nature of global politics. The Canadian skate-punks (and an LTJ legend) have placed their proverbial soapbox into the skate park and called for a 180 in Parliament.  

– “Leaving Hazelwood” (Demo)
HGC has this uncanny ability to come through your headphones or car stereo and make you feel like you are a super chill party with all the best people you may know.  The demo version (and the Fourth Dimension Intervention version) have that same ability.  The trope of a quirky singer songwriter typically plays as a negative, but this track helps dispel that bias.  The warm and cuddly timbre of the vocals covers you the way Taylor Swift's cardigan wraps her tightly and gives her all the feels. 

– “Comrades” – previously released digitally only
Aggressively brassy and I'm here for all of it!  The ska-core kick in the dick is equal parts Catch-22 and catch a case.  An equal distribution of arson and arpeggios, its the soundtrack to a violent overthrow of patriarchy and a solid banger that I'll be repeating on the reg. 

The What Nows?! – “Broken Down” (Campfire Version)
A fun little singalong this track is another upbeat heavy ditty that I feel in the cervix.  Sure, it can be sung around the fire, but it can also be danced to around the fire.  This is the track I'd choose to skank through the flames because the rhythms are so bouncy and the chorus is god-damn catchy.  I will likely never again be driving at night without that chorus ricocheting around my skull.

– “Swords” (from Got It)
Floating between ska, reggae and, the catch-all genre, island music, “Swords” is a chill track about finding peace and laying down your weapon.  The beautiful vocal harmonies that are heartfelt and catchy of a sound that is somehow both completely fresh and also nostalgic. “Swords” is the kind of comp closer you want, lulls you down from the high of some of the more aggressive tracks and catchy enough that it sticks with you. You will come back to this track again and again.

My only negative about the record is that if you are putting together the soundtrack to a festival featuring killer slasher-punks The Jasons and you put Jason's hockey mask on the cover, there should have been a cut from those guys (I'd suggest “Camp Arawak,” personally). That being said, if the only downside of your comp is some schmuck whining that a band (only somewhat-related to a graphic on the cover) wasn't featured, you put out a hell of a compilation. Sell The Heart put out a hell of compilation. See you at Camp, I'll be the chubby bearded guy who is too cool for sunscreen and too whiny to not bitch about the burn.