Samiam - Astray

The great thing about Samiam and the shitty thing about the term “pop-punk” is that you could play the CD to fans of Blink, or Sum, and they would hate it

There are some reasons I hate the term “pop punk”. The first being most listeners take out the word “pop” from the equation and think they are hardcore because they listen to New Found Glory (just because they started out “small” doesn’t mean they don’t suck.) Another is because the genre hosts such a wide range that happen to not fit into the subgenres of “emo” or “hardcore” or whatever. 

Bands as diverse as Blink-182, The Weakerthans, The Reunion Show, and of course Samiam all get lumped into 1 category (or so judgest this matter the supreme music gods of online retailers.) The great thing about Samiam and the shitty thing about the term “pop-punk” is that you could play the CD to fans of Blink, or Sum, and they would hate it. They would call it no fun (due to Samiam’s light use of profanity and lack of songs about puberty, where they lead singer breaks out into an MC job, and the song ends up being used by hot dog companies to promote their extra beefy taste), and just be turned off. Give it to listeners of Bad Religion, and they’d call it emo. Give it to Saves the Day fans, and they say “dude, this isn’t emo!” …and then go off and cry somewhere… 

The whole point being that a band like Samiam, who play heavy, emotional beautiful songs with the urgency of the political bands they more than often share bills with, and instrumentation that is simple and yet piercing just can’t get a break.

The album ranges from upbeat driven head-boppers like the opener, "Sunshine", to moody sludgy tracks that sound like what might happened if Alice in Chains went punk, ("Mud Hill"). Of course, there is a point where each track gets repetitive. And on 2 tracks, "Paraffin", and "Curbside", you realize the faults of a band playing with this much enthusiasm and emotion, sometimes you feel downright bad when you can see the effort and it doesn’t work. 

These tracks are below average, and boring, But on epics like "Dull," one of the BEST songs on teenage suicide I’ve ever heard, and the final track, "Why Do We", the band flowers into emotional climaxes that sent shivers down my spine. On the last song, “Why Do We”, Samiam’s singer Jason Beebout sings to a friends “...if the weight of this all / is too much by,.” Behind the plaintive power chords, the lyrics end up sounding like “If the weight of this song / is too much by now…” 

Both work just fine.

(Hopeless Records)