REVIEW: POWERHOUSE - YEAH!

SUP BRAH FROM BAKERSFIELD! People actually talk like that here. It kind of blows our mind. But, as we piloted our ridiculously human-growth-hormone needing Dodge Charger faux muscle car (WAY TO GO DETROIT!) up the Grapevine from LA Sunday morning, we took the opportunity to rock the mercifully AUX-IN equipped stereo (also kinda wimpy, for those interested in a greater level of detail of our various rental car experiences) up to the limit with a decidedly SoCal inspired pair of Houstonians we first stumbled across on Friday: Powerhouse.

Powerhouse’s 2007 debut ep, Yeah!, is chock full of big bright optimistic pop-punk crunch, earnest If I Had a Million Dollars goof and enough trappings of electronica and auto-tune to soften the edges for an easy ride on the slip and slide.

Aside from being exceedingly well produced, what makes this album great is that it eschews regret, remorse, ennui or any of the non-solar powered threads of personal experience that inevitably work their way into youth music. If art holds up a mirror to the human condition, then what you’re seeing in Yeah! is two best friends at Astroworld on opening day – it’s 78 degrees outside and there’s no lines on any of the rides. Powerhouse is really that – a celebration of itself and the friendship at its core. The pair are clearly having such a good time that their constant self referencing doesn’t really get old so much as serve to make you wish you had a best friend to rip retardedly catchy riffs and fart jokes with.

And unlike Gil Mantera (whose fans will enjoy Powerhouse, and who should tap the duo for their next trek through town[ATTN BOOKING PEOPLE]), who sometimes come across as a Batman and Sidekick routine, Powerhouse is pure Duke brothers – when something needs to be done (like finding a “Can of Jelly”, for example), it’s a shared quest. Granted, most of these quests involve cans of beer, smoking joints, winning fights, playing video games and getting the girls – but what the hell, why not. Standout tracks on this ep (though certainly not the only songs that have spent the last few days knocking around in our heads) include the heavily Billy Ocean-indebted “Get Into My Heart” and the unfukwitable pop perfection of “She Said She’s Sorry,” whose imperative chorus that you “COME ON GET OUT FOR LAST CALL” rules our face like all things exactly the opposite of One Thousand Cranes (We’ve practically tapped a hole in our six star hotel room floor to that one).

Though the boys eschew gentlemanly-behavior expert Michael Flocker’s advice that the overuse of curse words gives the appearance of a lack of vocabulary, Nabokovian lyrics in these arrangements would be counter productive and likely make only Jessica Creighton happy. Yeah! reminds us why pop punk was so much fun in the first place. This is our opening salvo of our summer, and all that’s missing is a song about school being out forever. Recommended.

Stream: Powerhouse - She Says She's Sorry

PS: Carrie Murphy loves this band.
ANGRY DAD PS: Don’t ever call a woman a bitch, especially if you call her the girl of your dreams in the next lyric.