Brooklyn’s Night Surf trade in cynical but earnest pop punk unafraid to take a hard look at relationships and our current national climate. “Sleight of Hand” is barreling hardcore that barely breaks 60 seconds. “Enemies” is excellently constructed pop punk and evidence that this genre still holds plenty of vitality in the right hands. Hopefully, Enemies is a harbinger that Night Surf have a full length in the works that’s as vigorous as their first two EPs. Their initial offerings suggest they are capable of being titans of punk rock.
Produced by Jesse Cannon (The Menzingers, Man Overboard, Lifetime, Saves The Day), the eleven songs that make up this album sound nice, crunchy and most of all, sparse. Not sure how to explain this, but there are tons of pop-punk albums out there and they all want to sound bigger than life.
Not so with this one… it’s as if they stripped these songs off everything that wasn’t entirely necessary while still making sure they ended up with catchy and slick pop-punk tunes that sound like they have holed up in that sweet spot between The Copyrights and ‘A Lesson In The Abuse of Information Technology’ era Menzingers with some Lookout! Records vibes for good measure.
Night Surf is a darker sound for what is usually quite a chipper genre, less of a darker pop punk and more pop punk that leans more into the punk aspect, this is definitely aided by the punk-style yelling of the vocals.
The album as a whole is genuinely enjoyable, both from the punk and pop punk perspectives. I think the band shines with how they’ve decided to embrace both genres that came together to create pop-punk. Anyone who is a fan of either genres will take interest in Night Surf and I hope to see what they do. with the prospect of a full album.