Early next month, Long Island Pop Punk quartet Giants At Large will be releasing their highly anticipated album, Doubt. The record works against its title and verifies the band’s distinctive standing in today’s Pop Punk scene.
Giants At Large keep it quick and fast-paced on this one; more than half of the songs on Doubt barely make the three-minute mark. The album carefully balances hurried, unceasing tracks with sweeping, more melodic ones in a way that is difficult to correctly imitate. Timebomb starts the record off at a less-than-energetic pace, but sticks to Giant At Large tradition of keeping it catchy as all hell. Sleep Sound is the band’s version of a ballad, with its more subdued, mellow pace that crescendos into an anthem, with vocalist Matt Lagattuta pleading, “Just close your eyes and please don’t forget about me”. Midway through the album, Devils picks things up a bit; its finger-splitting guitar work makes it the album’s most relentless track. The title track, which is also the album’s first single, features some swift shifts in rhythm, changing from thumping drum beats to the jaunty tempos of typical Pop Punk in a matter of seconds. Lagattuta’s incessant confession, “It scares me to death / ’cause I’m running in place going nowhere”, will be stuck in your head for days. Stay The Night accompanies the unavoidable appeal of the title track, with its the slashing guitar work joining its irresistibly catchy chorus (“Stay the night / It’ll be all right / I know I’ll come around”). Spaghetti is an inviting instrumental piece that introduces the more emotionally connective closing song, Let Me Down (“I know you’re not one to go back on all the bad things you said / But please try / Oh, try your best to not let me down again”).
Doubt is a decent follow-up to 2010’s The Best Has Yet To Come. It will satisfy past and present Giants At Large supporters while simultaneously attracting future fans across the Pop Punk spectrum.
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Written by Melissa Jones
