Stop Breathing

Long known as a reputable home for quality punk rock, No Idea has delivered the goods once again with Stop Breathing's debut. Featuring members of Young Livers, Glass & Ashes and the Fucking Wrath, the band lay down melodic punk rock that has no shortage of pure energy and is by no means wimpy like "melodic punk rock" can be. It's like Rise Against when they're not being too squeaky clean melodic (which is rare, but you know the one song on every album). It's all high speed, high energy, no-frills California punk that wouldn't be out of place on Epitaph or Fat Wreck Chords, but also has enough underground DIY attitude and not quite enough melodies to make that seem like a bit of a stretch. The album touches on all the punk clichés, but doesn't stay at any of them long enough to become stale. This is good stuff, all 14 songs and 30 minutes of it.