Album Review: Revisit the emo years with Nathan Aurora’s Pop Punk Goes Reggae!
Photo courtesy of Ineffable Music.
What does your teenage emo pop punk playlist have in common with reggae music? Absolutely nothing … until now!
The extremely talented vocalist and lead guitarist of Iya Terra, Nathan Aurora, has created a project and successfully bridged the gap, composing a compilation of some of your favorite songs from a distant past performed by a new community of artists that put their own reggae twist to each of them.
The well anticipated arrival of Pop Punk Goes Reggae will hit you right in the nostalgic feels. I’m sure not many reggae fans started off as reggae fans, especially if you can sing along with every song on this album. We come from all walks of life and probably listened to many other genres in our younger years, and if you’re like me, you may have discovered the American reggae scene through the help of streaming platforms that weren’t around in middle and high school when most of the songs on this LP were more relevant in your life.
Jimmy Eat World, My Chemical Romance and Yellowcard are just a few of the bands covered, and covered brilliantly! To hear your favorite reggae music makers singing songs from a completely different time of your life set to a chill new irie vibe is quite surreal, and trust me when I say you’ll be a little more excited than you thought you would to revisit each track. Some of the pairings are far from what you would expect, until you hear how wonderfully crafted each one is and how well they mesh; these artists really made each song into their own.
Aurora has revived the pop punk scene and successfully connected two extremely different genres (and time periods) with this beautifully, well thought out sixteen-song collection. I loved these emotional and often confessional tunes as a youngster (my first concert ever was New Found Glory) and have all but forgotten them since diving into a mostly reggae frame of mind as an adult. Fast forward to the present day and we get to enjoy them all over again, by the reggae artists and bands that hold our hearts today.
This album is going to do a lot of things for a lot of people. Not only is it going to reignite your past, I feel like it’s going to bring new listeners to the reggae community. Folks that have no idea who Bumpin Uglies are, have never heard of Kash’d Out or never listened to Mihali are going to have a huge reason to go check them out (along with so many others) and hopefully become new fans. Bridges are meant to connect people and places with different areas, and music shouldn’t be the exception; we have plenty of room for newcomers to make themselves comfortable!
I have to give a huge, heartfelt shoutout to Nathan Aurora, Crossed Heart Clothing, and every single artist on this masterpiece, along with Ineffable Records for hosting it. Well done guys and gals. I never knew I needed this as much as I did before listening to the whole album (over and over).
Tracklist:
SOJA - Sugar We’re Going Down (Fall Out Boy)
HIRIE - MakeDamnSure (Taking Back Sunday)
Kash’d Out - The Taste of Ink (The Used)
Kyle Smith - Ocean Avenue (Yellowcard)
Mihali - Complicated (Avril Lavigne)
The Movement - Until the Day I Die (Story Of The Year)
Bumpin Uglies - Hands Down (Dashboard Confessional)
Satsang - The Middle (Jimmy Eat World)
Iya Terra - Helena (My Chemical Romance)
Cydeways - In Too Deep (Sum 41)
Artikal Sound System - Misery Business (Paramore)
Micah Brown - My Friends Over You (New Found Glory)
Common Kings - I Write Sins Not Tragedies (Panic! At The Disco)
Ballyhoo! - I’d Do Anything (Simple Plan)
Kady Feinstein - If It Means a Lot to You (A Day To Remember)
Stick Figure - Boulevard of Broken Dreams (Green Day)
