Keystone

Digger: Chris Benner (vocals, acoustic guitar, guitar); Garret Hoskins (guitar); Ben Stephens (bass); Mike Kelly (drums, tambourine).
Additional personnel: Dana Fehr (vocals); Marci Laudenslager (keyboards).
Recorded at Sound Investment, Scranton, Pennsylvania and The Bubble Studios, Austin, Texas between May 26 & June 12, 2002.
With Keystone, prolific young punkers Digger certainly aren't trying to reinvent the wheel; rather, they're warming over a well-traveled punk-pop terrain. The thick, clotted guitars and bubblegum smarts throughout often bring to mind their elder labelmates, the Queers, while the quick-stop dynamics, escalating guitar lines, and earnest sentiments of "Stars Over Boulder" evoke Jimmy Eat World. And there is certainly a host of points of reference to Blink-182, including the adolescent vocal approach and rich guitars of "Try and Catch Me" or the brokenhearted skate-kid sentiments of "Tattoo Broken Hearts." What separates these Pennsylvanians from the pack, however (and they sure sound like a SoCal band), is that they happen to be really good at aping successful punk-pop gestures of yore -- and they've written a batch of fine originals to back up those dynamics that shows a real melodic, hooky touch. Once one gets past train-spotting the various groups who sound like this, the album is a lot of fun. ~ Erik Hage