Banner Pilot is the latest addition to the Fat Wreck Chords roster with the release of their album Collapser, and they’re a band that conjures up elements of Jawbreaker, Alkaline Trio, blink182 and The Lawrence Arms at times. Unfortunately, none of it’s very memorable.
That’s not to say it’s a “bad” record per se. It’s not. It has all the elements of a solid pop punk effort, with fast guitars, solid hooks and smart songwriting. The production is even nearly perfect, with a clean sound that carries the gruff vocals without losing the band’s essential gritty sound. It’s just missing that one element that would make it “great” record, as opposed to only “good.”
What is that element? It’s hard to define, other than to say you’ll know it when you hear it, and without that one element, Collapser is a unremarkable formulaic concoction that rolls seamlessly from track to unmemorable track.
This sameness form track to track is one of the biggest things hurting the album. The songs on Collapser all bleed together with a cohesion that lets you know that the band is a master of their craft and their sound. It’s just not that much of a sound, lacking any sort of distinction.
There are three tracks that stand above the rest. “Starting at an Ending” opens with some dense, diesel-powered guitars and is a bit more memorable lyrically than the rest with the best chorus on the record (Listen/Download), “Farewell to Iron Bastard” is a solid, driving punk tune with big hooks that is nearly inspiring (Listen/Download), and “Empty Lot” features some buzzsaw riffs and the most energy to be found on the record (Listen/Download). But even the best for this record is still the best of the mediocre. The songs are all right, but they’re never truly exciting or even really memorable enough to sing along to.
There are more bands like this than I can even call out; many of the best record labels have them on their catalogs as B-grade fillers. Banner Pilot is better than many of those bands, but until they grab hold of that one element that makes a decent enough band truly good, they are doomed to this gray area. They are talented enough to do it, but for now they’re just the band playing in the background at the party that nobody really notices, and if they do notice enough to ask who’s playing, odds are they’ll promptly forget again.
