Not much is known about Merit Maker. These guys are hailing from Philadelphia and they play punk rock. This record contains ten songs of fast melodic hardcore punk, bringing back the nineties hardcore punk melodycore vision to this century. The songs are mainly fast, some of them leaning more into hardcore side of things, being not so much melodic but harsher, like for example ‘False Starts’. There is an occasional melancholic melody and atmosphere that goes through the songs like thread that binds them all together, but maybe it is only me that hears such stuff on this album. Bassist/vocalist Joe Stanton’s voice is just made for music like this one. The guy does not have your typical melodic voice but he can transform it also to ultra melodic like in Ramonescore influenced ‘Look Back’ which reminded me of Teenage Bottlerocket a little bit, that is good since TB is one of my favorite bands ever in the genre, not saying Merit Maker copied anyone, quite the contrary. Besides melancholy, I like some kind of untamed and wild punk rock energy that goes through this album and connects all the songs into one whole and makes this good record. My other personal highlights: ‘Sparks Ignite’, ‘Falling Out’, ‘Hang Ups’.

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