Every Avenue – Bad Habits – Album Review

Huge hooks, catchy choruses and a sound that is wonderfully radio friendly, Every Avenue’s new album, Bad Habits, is everything that you’d expect from a pop-punk band. Yet Every Avenue throw in more aggressive guitar lines, boast a vocalist with a rather fine set of pipes and have created an album generally rather marvellous.

With Bad Habits, Every Avenue seemed to have blossomed into a more mature band without losing their fun sound. Opening track ‘Tie Me Down’ has a splendidly contagious chorus, that I’ve sang quietly (I hope) down many corridors and high streets not long after listening to the album. The rest of the album is just as catchy, filled with lyrics of tempestuous relationships, break ups and the like.

One very pleasing feature of the album is the variety of songs: you have your foot stomping, ‘Hit Me Where it Hurts the Most’; a typical rock ballad with ‘Only Place I Call Home’. ‘Whatever Happened To You’ packs quite a punch and on the other end of the scale ‘I Can’t Not Love You’ could potentially bring a tear to an eye. Not mine… honest. Thanks to the absolutely awesome vocals of Dave Strauchman, this album is turned from a pretty decent one into something rather special.

Bad Habits is one that everyone can relate to at some point. Although Every Avenue don’t write lyrics worthy of a sonnet, it really doesn’t matter when you have Strauchman taking charge and leading you through the wide range of emotions. Bad Habits is a great album that I’ve span many a time. Yes, it is probably going to fill the airwaves over the next coming months, but it’s highly addictive and well up there on my albums of 2011.

Track Listing

1. Tie Me Down
2. Whatever Happened To You
3. There Tonight
4. Fall Apart
5. Just Getting Started
6. Only Place I Call Home
7. Someday, Somehow
8. Hit Me Where It Hurts The Most
9. I Can’t Not Not Love You
10. Watch The World