Lawyer Beaters
Waited Enough

When European pop-punk gets it wrong, it gets it incredibly, cringe-worthingly wrong. But when it is good, it is often excellent. The Lawyer Beaters are a shining example of the latter, unleashing their fairly unique, anthemic version of pop-punk onto the world. A lot of euro punk falls into the trap of blatantly re-working (i.e. copying) their idol?s work and form part of the ?Ramonescore? genre, or even worse, ?Queers-core.? It?s not big, and it?s certainly not clever. The Lawyer Beaters, as fresh faced Italians on the scene, dismiss these over-done, dull clichés, and instead revert to making kick ass punk rock, that has both style and finesse. It?s really the guitars that do it. Driving, anthemic guitars throughout that sounds both fresh and hard-hitting. It really is something different when you?re used to the bog-standard Ramones-y three chords of so many other bands, and is very reminiscent of the Apers in this way. The Lawyer Beaters certainly mean business with these guitars. For me, they take the melodic, anthemic guitar approach of bands from that early nineties ..Southern California.. punk scene (Pennywise, NOFX) and apply it to a poppier format.
Lyrically, the Lawyer Beaters step it up a notch or two as well. You aren?t forced to sit through half an hour?s worth of ?Please girl, be my baby oh, oh, oh? or some other related, tired bullshit. Three songs in, and the Lawyer Beaters have already introduced themes of the war in Iraq (?This is the story of a stolen life/Of a deceived boy and his sad wife? - "Story of a Good Soldier"), a tribute to Joey Ramone (?Forever, I?ll keep you inside? - "Silly Monday") and a three minute sing-along of a time spent as a waiter, used as a metaphor for the protagonist?s lack of success (?Cause I?m a waiter, now we leave the dream/Yes, I?m a waiter, on the stage you see?). Phew! The themes are thus so varied for the listener never to lose interest. Unfortunately, the tempo and lyrical adeptness doesn?t quite keep up after these three initial rock ?n? roll blasts. It, however, remains a very good debut effort, with the protagonist scouring greater emotional depths later on ("Elisabeth?s Song" and "She Cried") which work very well indeed. Easily the best Italian pop-punk record this year, but what comes next may take them on to a bigger stage...