"My goodness, how nice those guys are", that's what I thought when I saw Piebald live a couple of weeks ago, and now, as I can't take my hands and ears off their third and actual album, I'm thinking nothing but the same. You plain and simple can't avoid loving a band that not only dedicates one song to their departed van ("King Of The Road") but their whole Europoean tour (remember those lovely tourposters?). But besides their charme the band, resp. their new album has so much more to offer: 12 brilliant songs. You just can't resist their catchiness, you won't get the hooklines of songs like "Long Nights", "Just A Simple Plan" or "Look, I Just Don't Like You" out of your head for days. And I wouldn't say at all, that there's too much Pop in here, of course the songs are cheesy, but cheesiness is their style. And they got so much style. Considering this Pop-thing, I got fed up real fast with the last Jimmy Eat World album, but I just can't get enough of this very record. The Piebald brand of melodic Emopunk is so full of references, like Weezer or the Stereo they're throwing in lots of trashy metal-leads, they're recording a chorus with a couple of kids, for variety reasons they play a country/folk-type of acoustic ballad with beautiful lyrics like these: "I'm holding one hand or two depending if we're walking or dancing", they're going so many directions and they perform so light-footed as if it was nothing to compose alltime classics. And, with "The Stalker" they not only recorded my very-personal superhit of the album, but the best song The Presidents Of The USA or Weezer were never able to write.
(enough fanzine)