Red Scare – July 10, 2020
Broadway Calls returns with songs of a happy apocalypse.
After a seven-year absence, Broadway Calls have brought back their nostalgic pop-punk on their new LP Sad in the City. Despite the title and lyrical themes of the apocalypse, the trio from Oregon have not put out a melancholy sounding record. Broadway Calls remains positive, powerful and energetic on their fourth full length.
From start to finish, Sad in the City is an in your face punk record in line with many of the Fat Wreck Chords releases of the early 2000s. All eleven songs come straight ahead with a gravelly vocal sneer, pulsing drums and defiant guitar lines a testament that their is no rust on the musicianship of the band over the last seven years.
Comfort/Distraction, Broadway Calls’ 2013 full length, was rife with generic lyrical content with themes of death and society falling apart but on Sad in the City the songwriting has improved and vocalist Ty Vaughn isn’t pretending he missed the criticisms. Opening track “Never Take Us Alive” quickly lets listeners know he is not being serious as a heart attack despite the fun of the trio’s work. “You think I’m hyperbolic, wish I was fucking around,” immediately squashes any thoughts the listener may have about this being another brain-dead skate-punk romp.
The lyrical growth of Broadway Calls is definitely the high point of Sad in the City. No longer are we hearing generic calls to arms or shallow demands for change, instead there is an imagery and depth in the way the words tie together. The band has found a way to color in their narratives of upcoming destruction and a currently deteriorating society. Maybe the difference is that Broadway Calls were painting blurry images what they saw on the distant horizon until now. Now the state of affairs have created still-lifes and photographs for them to put on their musical canvas.
Broadway Calls has brought together the best elements of The Lawrence Arms, The Gaslight Anthem and Good Riddance to create their own style, something fresh while still familiar. This is skate-punk the way it is meant to be, fun and fast at cursory glance, but the more rotations given, the more impressive it becomes. Here’s to less than seven years before we get to see the next phase of growth from Broadway Calls again.
Bad Dad (occasionally called Ed) has been on the periphery of the punk and punk-adjacent scene for over twenty years. While many contributors to this site have musical experience and talent, Ed’s musical claim to fame comes from his time in arguably the most punk rock Blockbuster Video district in NJ where he worked alongside members of Blanks 77, Best Hit TV and Brian Fallon. He is more than just an awful father to his 2 daughters, he is also a dreadful husband, a subpar writer, a terrible dresser and has a severe deficiency in all things talent… but hey, at least he’s self-aware, amirite?
Check out the pathetic attempts at photography on his insta at https://www.instagram.com/bad_dad_photography/
