Greenlawn Abbey

On their self-titled debut, the members of Columbus, Ohio’s Greenlawn Abbey dish out twelve songs of toe-tappin’ rock and roll, reminiscent of Superdrag, Urge Overkill, and Big Star. With such great melodies, such great hooks, these guys make writing awesome pop songs seem so easy. The band members take turns on the songwriting, and as the disc plays, you can hear how they all come from completely different school districts of rock. Guitarist Anthony Norris can write songs that fall somewhere between Micky Dolenz (“Cigarette Girls”) and Nash Kato (“Tori and the Cat”, “Enter the Cowboy”). While Norris’ songs are sweet, guitarist Milan Karcic’s songs that land a tad more on the edgy side. His voice rocks like Ozzy, and his “Park Hotel” is just one of the many songs on here that will knock you on your ass.

If I could change one thing about this album, it’d be the recording. It seems too clean. Turn up those guitars, dudes! This band writes some sweet pop songs; I really think they are strong enough and have the potential to rock a little harder than this recording represents. But that’s just one man’s opinion. On the upside, this is one hell of a debut album; the band has definitely proved itself worthy of finding out what they’re going to do next.

--Kyle Sowash

Label Website: http://www.diaphragmrecords.com