The All-American Rejects - The All-American Rejects (Doghouse)

This kicks off with a vocal performance that's instantly irritating, bringing Green Day to mind and a shudder to the body. Tyson Ritter has all the irritating inflections of Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong and that's a major negative. They're fake, nobody talks like that, why do they feel the need to sing like that?

Musically, the All-American Rejects play breezy poppy sounds with a vague punk element and a drum machine that sounds somewhat out of place in a genre that always has some nut bashing away at his kit at the back of the stage.

If you can get past the vocal style, then you might like this; it's Green Day or Weezer with a Beach Boys fetish and is a nice poppy alternative to the extremely juvenile rubbish clogging up the pop-punk scene these days. Alas, I can't get over the singing, it was bad enough when Green Day did it, but it's even more annoying to hear someone copy it.

Donnacha DeLong