My Everest by The Swellers

The debut full-length by young quartet the Swellers is a decent but naggingly monochromatic slab of no-frills pop-punk. Sounding for all the world like a band with no influences that predate Green Day's Kerplunk, this fresh-faced Michigan foursome never deviates from its chosen path: one dozen brief, speedy slices of melodic punk tunes with clean vocals and catchy riffs, guaranteed to be lapped up by the younger brothers of those who loved blink-182 and Yellowcard. The only problem is that singer/guitarist Nick Diener and his drummer brother Jonathan Diener, the listed co-writers of all 12 songs, have perhaps too limited an artistic vision: taken one at a time, songs like "Clean Slate" and "Rain Check" are super-catchy three-minute pop-punk tunes that sound tailor-made for summers at the beach and the skate park. But listen to all of them in a row, without even a nod toward a power ballad or a hardcore pisstake to break things up, and My Everest starts getting slightly dull by the end. ~ Stewart Mason, Rovi