Okay, let's try this again

The Aquabats
Hi-Five Soup!
Fearless Records



(Editor's note: The sad fact of the matter is that I have a very demanding job which leaves me very little, if any, time to write blogs. I restarted The Midpoint with the hopes that simply having dominion over a small slice of the web would guilt me into regular posting. Several months later I see that isn't the case, sadly. I will do what I can, starting with my favorite thing to write about, new(ish) music! I don't care that it's almost March of 2012, I'm going to write about my favorite albums of 2011 in alphabetical order by band name.)

It isn't the mid to late 90's anymore, that strange time when you could tune into a popular radio station and hear ska tunes quite frequently. (It's true! That really happened) So don't expect to hear the Aquabats' latest on the public airwaves anytime soon. However, looking back, despite the Aquabats upstrokes and early horn usage, lumping them in with the third wave felt like a bit of a stretch 15 years ago. More an association of convenience. Weird costumes? Horns? Some ska rhythms? Sure, lump em in! If that's the case, placing Hi-Five Soup in that group is certainly not warranted. The album seems to have been developed around a series of irresistible keyboard riffs and lyrical hooks. The subject matter has drifted into the realm of singer MC Bat Commander's day job, Yo Gabba Gabba. If YGG is a show designed to be enjoyed by children with their parents, Hi Five Soup is designed to be enjoyed by parents with their children. The swashbuckling "The Shark Fighter," anthemic "Just Can't Lose," and joyful "B.F.F." have upbeat rhythms and sugary hooks to catch goofballs of all ages and offense-free but still humorous lyrics. At the end, we've experienced a great deal of exclamation marks and sounds we never thought we'd hear on an Aquabats album. And we've had fun that I keep coming back to a year later.

Here's B.F.F.!