Side Walk Slam
Carmi, Illinois8 reviews across 3 releases
Side Walk Slam was a Christian pop-punk band from southern Illinois that began playing together around 1996 and touring in 1998. It started as a cover band, drawing on MxPx, then moved into original material before signing with Tooth & Nail Records. The 2001 debut Past Remains was fast melodic punk with short songs and power-chord guitar over a steady rhythm section. Its lyrics joined explicitly Christian writing to stories about marriage and ordinary teenage mistakes. The band stayed close to that formula on Give Back, though Marcuss Hall's departure changed the singing. By ...And We Drive, the writing had become more personal and somewhat more varied, while the basic two-minute pop-punk structure remained.
Marcuss Hall left before Give Back was recorded, and bassist David Josiah Curtis took over lead vocals while the band searched for a guitarist; Hall still wrote every song on the album. Neil Endicott joined on guitar by the time of ...And We Drive, and a different member handled the writing, a change that some reviewers heard as greater creativity even as others found the songs repetitive. Side Walk Slam ended in 2003. Curtis and Endicott later reunited with drummer Matt Jackson and Paul Stewart in Run Kid Run, which shifted toward Christian pop-rock and released This Is Who We Are in 2006. Run Kid Run followed it with Love at the Core in 2008.
3 releases reviewed
Give Back
...And We Drive