From the band photo on the cover, replete with cowboy hats and greasy hair, I was expecting a bit more punkabilly -- so River City High’s melodic hardcore kind of caught me off guard. Once I managed to assuage my (minor) disappointment, RCH totally won me over. This is the good, energetic stuff. There’s not a shred of irony on this disk; if there is, it’s really easy to ignore it and just unabashedly rock out.

This is River City High’s first full-length. They've also released two EPs, and managed to write and record this album in their spare moments between gigs (over 200 last year alone!). The album opens with "Left Behind," which comes off as a pretty standard new school hardcore tune, complete with jerky rhythm and vocal chorus. The song's energy is really infectious; there are tons of catchy melodies to hook you, and fragments of clever lyrics, but it’s really River City High’s unflagging energy and rock and roll tendencies that carry you through the whole album.

Even though it might be the most typical song on the album -- it could have been a Green Day song -- I really dug "Just a Song" for its self-referential lyrics and, well, its familiarity. I kept listening for hints of Southern rock (or GWAR), as the band is from Richmond, but the only real evidence of the band’s geographical background is in the banjo pickin of "November Hello A.M." a pleasant bluegrass interlude, which ultimately morphs into the high energy "November Hello P.M." Won’t Turn Down is a lot more good natured and a lot less angsty than straight-up hardcore.