Philadelphia-based Fire in the Radio release their sophomore album New Air. The album is the follow-up to their 2015 acclaimed record Telemetry. New Air finds the band pushing their unique brand of up-tempo indie-punk in a fresh direction incorporating elements of new wave, grunge, and shoegaze drone into tightly crafted pop songs...

For fans of Fire in the Radio, New Air doesn't disappoint. While the PR info pushes them as an indie-punk band, I'm afraid I just don't see it. This is pop-rock, to my ears; an updated, watered down adult orientated rock (AOR), if you like, for a new generation.

At times I was reminded of a harder version of Owl City. The band write and perform memorable songs that aren't actually memorable... What I mean is that while you might not be able to hum or sing along to these tracks (I've been listening to the album for about a month and I still can't) you'll be nodding your head in recognition to each and every song.

There's no "b" sides here and no tracks that stand out at the expense of the rest. From start to finish this is modern AOR that will have you hooked. In fact this was one of the few album's I've felt the urge to put on repeat so it just loops around and around.

Yes, it's short (more an EP than an album) coming in at 7 songs (23 min, 25 sec), but what it lack in quantity it more than makes up for in quality.

Stick this on loud, stick it on repeat and rock out!

9

Nick Smithson