The Drama of Alienation

Prior to Lance Hahn's death in 2007, J Church were very busy in the punk scene. Releasing numerous amounts of albums and EPs, appearing on comps, J Church really made a name for themselves. Sadly, Lance Hahn passed away in 2007, but, through his love of music, we have J Church, as well as previous bands, like Cringer. The Drama of Alienation was released in 1996, on Honest Don's. The album is twelve tracks of catchy pop punk, with all but one track under three minutes.

The album opens with "A Simple Gesture", a two-minute pop punk blast that really sets up what the album is to follow. Lance has a very distinct voice that shines over the album, and Gardner's bass is mixed in well. The next song, "Smell it Rot" is a very poppy song, making a more memorable one on the album. The only song over three (it's actually over four), "Santa Cruz", reminds me a lot of Lagwagon. It's a lot slower than the rest of album. It abandons the catchy pop punk on the other eleven tracks, instead focusing on the words and the actual instrument work.

Aside from "Santa Cruz", the entirety of Drama is really catchy pop punk, but, the lyrics are much more in depth than your standard pop punk. The album has introspective lyrics that are very personal. Lance really knew how to write lyrics, and it's really evident on songs like "Alone When She Dies" and the aforementioned "Santa Cruz". This album isn't perfect by any means; the songs tend to follow a really similar structure. But, the band knows how to play their music well, and thanks to Lance's lyrics, J Church really set themselves apart from other pop punks that were around not only at the time, but those that are around today. The album is good, as are the rest of them.

8/10

http://www.fatwreck.com/record/detail/003

Yes. Get it.