I may be losing the plot with punk rock. I remember a time when punk rock stood for more than three-chord progressions, up-tempo love songs, the occasional trite attempt at a political lyric and fist-pumping rock. All of those things are fine and sometimes quite fun, but seem redundant since every band from Dropkick Murphys to Nickelback can do that.

Enter Dead to Me with their latest offering Moscow Penny Ante. Dead to Me sounds exactly like you would expect a punk band to. Up-tempo tracks with simple music and shouted lyrics are pretty much par for the course here. By “par for the course” I mean that every song sounds the same. They are completely acceptable punk songs, but feel dated. None of them say anything important and, frankly, sound like a rehash of a Face to Face greatest hits collection…from 2002.

I’m not asking for every band to write lyrics like Rage Against the Machine or Propagandhi. But there is nothing concrete here that hasn’t been performed before or even better. Moscow Penny Ante is a decent punk record, but there isn’t anything special about it. It just merely exists in the flow of pop-punk.

(Fat Wreck Chords, PO Box 193690, San Francisco, CA 94119)