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| Released by Dirtnap Records and Screaming Apple Records, April 1, 2003 |
Genre: Power-pop, Punk
Members: Adam Cox, Matt Fitzgerald, Terry Six, Jeremy Gager
Does music
have to be new to be good? People love
the idea of artists coming up with completely novel ideas, but it turns out
that’s actually harder then that. Sometimes
taking something that you truly love, and putting your own spin on it can be
more then enough to make something that people will love forever. I truly believe the best musicians are the
ones that never stop loving music. They
keep listening to all the music they love until they are able to combine it
with their own experience and express it. Which brings me to The Exploding Hearts.
The
Exploding Hearts began in the early 2000’s when 4 high school friends who
shared the same love for the punk mantra and aesthetic started to play music
together. They started to gather a large
local following during the Northwest 70’s power-pop and new wave revival. They recorded their first and only album
Guitar Romantic in 2002, and released it in April 2003. Shortly thereafter a tour bus crash killed
three of the members quickly ending the story of The Exploding Hearts shortly
after it began.
It’s easy
to speculate on ‘what might have been,’ but despite the tragedy we are luck
enough to still have this album. For
what it is worth, this album is one of the best pieces of early 70’s punk
despite it being 30 years to late. From
the bright pink album cover, to the song about getting high on glue and
breaking up, this album would be at home now or back then.
The worst
thing you could say about The Exploding Hearts is their music has been done
before. It doesn’t take much
scrutinizing to hear the heavy influence from early 70’s punk acts like The
Damned, The Clash and The Jam as well as power pop acts like Nick Lowe and
early Elvis Costello. The beauty of
these guys though is they sound like all of these bands, and none of them at
the same time. These songs combine the
reckless abandon and raw rock sound of punk with the tight song writing of the
new wave acts.
Whether you’re the next big thing, or you’re
stuck in the past, there will always be a stage for people who love music.
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