Punk music has had a long and storied existence, changing along its 50-year-plus trajectory under the pressure of underground fads and fashion, and not always for the better. It has emerged from bedrooms and basements as angsty pop songs and rabble-rousing street anthems, chart-dominating pop-punk, belligerent, scuzzy garage rock, statement-making, angular and abrasive art-pop, and everything in between.
With the latest album, Better Days Ahead, Merit Maker is continuing its quest to write a new chapter for it, one that encapsulates all the things that made those various guises great but which strides confidently into a bright new future. It’s less about nods to the punk past and more a statement about where it is going.
“Set It Straight” kicks things off with a superb blend of alt-rock energy and punk-pop buoyancy, an “up-and-at-’em” sonic salvo that any punk and rock fan will find refreshing. “Around Again” builds a bridge between the 80s’ new wave and the 90s’ punk revivalists, a song that perhaps early Green Day would have been blessed to have in their back catalog. “Roads Ahead” rounds us off with something that proves that, although punk was known for delivering a sonic sucker punch, Merit Maker is also able to play with more interesting and intricate dynamics whilst doing so.
This is what happens when you aim to make punk fun and infectious, and perhaps even commercial, or at least easily accessible, but do so without sacrificing all the things that define it: pummelling drums, relentless bass lines, anthemic, fist-in-the-air lyrics, machine-gun riffs, and uncompromising groove.
A new chapter for the genre? I reckon so!
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