Dark Romance of a Midnight Wanderer by The Christmas Bride is a Hardcore Pop Punk is a Testament to the Enduring Power of Youthful Disenchantment Post Adolescence

Is the sprawling collection of The Offspring CDs in the background image of the Bandcamp page for this album a big hint of what’s in store when you listen to this album from Chicago’s The Christmas Bride? Yes and no. Is there some irony involved with that presentation? Probably and a quick look through the track listing (“Kajagoogoo Head” and “Manic Pixie Dream Boy” come readily to mind) it’s obvious a healthy sense of humor in general and about life’s most absurd and unfortunate moments and situations informs the songwriting. Pop punk’s transmutation of pain and disappointment into self-deprecating poetry set to energetic music is the genre at its best and that dynamic runs throughout this album. It’s essentially a master class in pop punk with distorted melodies akin to what you’d hear on a Hüsker Dü record as on “Cereal Monogamist,” itself a send-up of the concept by taking the title literally for the lyrics. “The Rock & Roll Hippies of Love” is reminiscent of an Alice Donut song in turning an unusual concept into a surreal power pop song. “Kajagoogoo Head” is curiously a hardcore song in the middle of the album that is the mutant child of later Black Flag and JFA. The band’s signature song, “The Christmas Bride,” traces in miniature the un-glamorous origin story of the band working shitty jobs and aiming to do something with more meaning. And despite the deep and playful irreverence of the subject matter and attitude toward most of these songs there is an earnestness and solid sense of song craft that renders it a worthwhile listen beginning to end like an album of solidarity for real human existence and experiences born of genuine feelings that infuse each song with an unexpected vitality. Listen to Dark Romance of a Midnight Wanderer on Bandcamp.