Matt Skiba Kevin Seconds

Item: Split
Author: Chaz Murphy

Split

(2002)

Reviewed by Chaz Murphy

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Label Asian Man RecordsDecapolisNovember 2002

acoustic pop punk

Asian Man Records is proud to present you with two of the biggest lead singers in the scene doing their own solo projects. Matt Skiba of the always popular pop-punk trio, The Alkaline Trio and Kevin Seconds of the classic hardcore punk band, 7 Seconds. Both Skiba and Seconds contribute five songs a piece for this recording and they also play all the instruments as well. Skiba and Seconds both take their creative talents to another direction with this release. If you are expecting the Alkaline Trio or the 7 Seconds sound on this you will be very disappointed. Skiba and Seconds take their talent to the acoustic guitar.

Skiba gets the stage first with his first 5 songs. He gives a good heart felt set. His lyrics are just as good as they are with the Alkaline Trio. The recording for this album isn't all that great. The recording just wasn't loud enough. When the drums kicked in, the guitar was drowned out and the vocals lost some of its power as well. The songs themselves were good and I really enjoyed his five songs but I would rather listen to an Alkaline Trio album (actually the first song starts off just like the Alkaline Trio song "Bleeder"). The songs remain poppy and upbeat and I am really glad he didn't do any kindof dashboard confessional, over-dramatic crap. He does some really creative stuff on this album. I recommend checking out his part of the album.

Seconds...that's the amount of time it took me to realize that Kevin Seconds had made a mistake in making this split album. The songs are too poppy and filled with horrible rhyme schemes. It seems like he tried to mix the Beach Boys and the Dead Milkmen. The production of his five songs is even worse than the Skiba songs. I was really disappointed with his 5 tracks. I really don't recommend his 5 tracks to anyone...not even die hard 7 Seconds fans. Basically, Skiba was great and Seconds was very bad.

Skiba gets a grade of: B-
Seconds gets a grade of: D-