Vista Blue - Rock Acrostics

You had to know that social distancing + America's most prolific band was going to equal a new Vista Blue release! For Mike and Mark, "stay at home" basically means "make a new record". But here's the thing that gets me: I'm now on my 23rd Vista Blue review (really!), and I'm still blown away by the way this band maintains such a high standard of quality even with such a crazy volume of output. At the rate this band works, you could forgive them for occasionally disappointing a la Kyle Schwarber's 2017 season. But every single time, these guys manage to deliver! Leading off Rock Acrostics, we have "This One's Not About You". This is vintage VB all the way: a delightfully catchy tune full of fuzzy guitars, golden oldies harmonies, and clever/funny lyrics that will put an instant smile on your face. The joke here is that after writing dozens of songs about the same girl, our protagonist endeavors to finally write a song that's not about her - which of course, is totally about her! It was less than 10 days ago that I hailed a Mike Patton lyric as my favorite of this year, but he's already topped himself with the line "I wrote a song called 'Pulchritudinous' to describe how you look". Oh my god, I'm dying! "I Think Cathy Is Crazy (About You)" pulls back on the guitar distortion and brings to mind the earnest, charming pop of MTX or solo Dr. Frank with a touch of Travoltas harmonies. Lyrically, this is a timeless tale of a boy who likes a girl who likes someone else. This very theme could sustain the pop-punk genre forever, and here Vista Blue demonstrates how it ought to be done. To finish, "I Wanna Be A Huntington" is a song Mike first wrote for his band The Robinsons way back in 2002. It's basically a follow-up to the Huntingtons' classic track "I Wanna Be A Ramone". For a variety of reasons, The Robinsons never got around to recording it. The fact that Mike was inspired to dust off this song 18 years later is a tremendous testament to the staying power of the Huntingtons' music and a reminder that there are always cool new bands worthy of our adoration. Who will write the song "I Wanna Be In Vista Blue"?

Rock Acrostics, like much of the Vista Blue catalog, is a free download over at Bandcamp. It's an amazing thing that in our high-tech modern world, a band can record an EP and have it officially released two days later. I suppose that might be a bad thing if a band were putting out crap. But Vista Blue never disappoints, and Rock Acrostics is one of its strongest titles and definitely its most straight-forward pop-punk release since ...And You Have a Pizza. If you've noticed me geeking out over pop-punk on Facebook lately, I'd say new music from The Putz and Vista Blue has had a lot to do with that!



-L.R.

https://wearevistablue.bandcamp.com/track/this-ones-not-about-you-2 
https://www.facebook.com/wearevistablue/