The band’s one-sheet inexplicably classifies the band as “Ramones-descended pop punk,” but the guitar rhythms and song structures are almost completely a-Ramonal, leading me to wonder if the dude who wrote the one-sheet (or, for that matter, the band) has even heard the Ramones in the first place. I mean, the only band i can think of from that entire era that The Popsters might reasonably lay claim to being “descended” from would be the Professionals, and even that reference is more circumstantial than anything. Contains a cover of Tom Petty’s “American Girl” that serves the noble enough purpose of putting a version of that song into the record collections of people like me who always kinda liked that song, but didn’t like it enough to actually go out and buy a Tom Petty record (though the song stops short of being even vaguely exceptional owing to the fact that the drummer stops keeping time once he starts playing fills), and ends with a hookless, five-minute patience tester that one would tend to file under “What Exactly WERE You Thinking?” were one a meticulous bookkeeper. In summation, i like their name, but i think their records should be pinker. BEST SONG: “American Girl” BEST SONG TITLE: Wow, still “American Girl” FANTASTIC AMAZING TRIVIA FACT: I honestly cannot figure out if the band is from Carbondale, Illinois or Italy.
–norb (It’s Alive)