Band : Rejects United

Album title : Boyhood Survival Kit

Label : Lockjaw

Distributor : Progressive Publicity

Release date : 05/05/2008

Release : CD

Casais suburbs of Lisbon, Portugal, 2004. 4 musician friends with a serious background in the Portuguese scene unite in their love for Rock music to form Rejects United . Indeed, lead singer/ rhythm guitarist João Campos used to play in Infatuation J. before joining lead guitarist/ backing singer Paulo Spinola (who'd been with Buckle Up ) in Same Old Suspects , and while bassist/ backing singer Vitor Calado had played with Black Nepal and Micky Eight (a female fronted melodic Punk act which has recently been reformed), drummer Rodrigo Alves had the largest curriculum, still playing with Tara Perdida , and having played with Starvan , Summer Of Damien , and Micky Eight before. In 2005, the band recorded and distributed (on their own effort) their debut EP Rebound Aftermath , and took their music all over their native country touring with Aside , Fiona At Forty , If Lucy Fell and Primitive Reason (with whom they shared the stage at the Festa Do Animal event)...and even getting some songs aired on their national radio Antena 3 . They returned to the studio to record the 14 (new) songs for their debut full-length, co-produced by guitarist Miguel Marques of the popular Lisbon act Easyway .

Although the band claims to be influenced by equal parts of Metal ( Pantera , Metallica , Atreyu ), Punk ( My Chemical Romance , Everytime I Die , Dashboard Confessional ) and Rock ( Guns 'n' Roses , Foo Fighters , Danko Jones , Queens Of The Stone Age , MC5 ), what comes out most in the 14 songs on the band's debut full-length album is the Rock aspect. The sounds on album opening intro "Disclaimer" and ensuing song "Never (Rejects Anthem)" make one suspect for a brief moment that we might have to do with an Emo (the intro)/ Melodic Punk Rock (the song) band, but that feeling is swiftly swept under the table with the following songs. Indeed, what you get is an exhilerating and appealing Hard Rock album with a Grunge undertone (but more in the sense that a modern Hard Rock act like Pearl Jam was also categorised into that genre due to the fact that this happened to be the popular genre at the time). Lyrically, the album is semi-conceptual, telling about the struggles of a boy loosing his mind when suffering yet another romantic rejection, and as such explores the ways such events can affect a person's mental state. In spite of the gloomy subject of the album, the band hopes to send out a positive message of hope to all rejects in the world.

Check out myspace.com/rejectsunited to find three songs off the EP and two of the new songs. As you'll hear, the singer(s) English is quite perfect, which is certainly a bonus for a Portuguese band. The guitars make some very nice rhythm/ lead runs, not too complicated or simple, not too long or short, and overall I personally like a lot...but not enough to put Boyhood Survival Kit into that "Best Albums Of 2008"-list of mine. Still a nice album to spend some time with though!

89/100

Tony.