Driver Side Impact

This Cleveland quintet return with their sophomore album, and a little bit more grit to their pop punk. With Branden Langhals sounding very reminiscent of Adam Lohrbach from Home Grown, it's hard not to peg Driver Side Impact as just another copycat in a very oversaturated and stagnant genre. And to some degree they are. However, they find a way to do it fairly well. "The Day You Made The Sky Fall" has a bouncy stop-go guitar chorus, combined with dual vocals that complement each other. And on "Ascending," they turn up the aggression with chunky guitars, a straight-ahead rock chorus and a bridge filled with screaming akin to Silverstein (sort of). While there's nothing revolutionary revealed on Lion, and at times they try too hard to include guitar solos and melody changes ("Walking on Water" and "Rumor Mill"), they find a way to entertain over 11 tracks.