I Call Fives is the pop-punk band you can bring home to your parents and not be embarrassed about. They have plenty of attitude and energy, but they’re also polite, don’t sing songs about cutting their wrists, don’t sing songs overly geared towards typical relationship problems, and they can play their instruments. Sweet, right?

Bad Advice is their newest digital EP. Frankly I’m pissed that it is not a full-length; I don’t think that this band should ever waste their time with an EP ever again. They have all the correct components and building blocks for the greatest pop-punk band that this wave of pop-punk could handle, but they need more time to grow, more albums to release, and so on. It is very rare in all my time with tight pants and neon t-shirt wearing, power chord chugging groups of guys to release their first album and get praise, and then get signed to a badass record label (No Sleep) and drop an EP that kicks ass too. But I Call Fives beat every other band in the genre to it.

The production of Bad Advice is typical of any heavy hitting pop-punk band. All the drum tracks are EQ’ed the way they need to be. The guitars have little effects added beyond distortion and the occasional extra effect (more reverb, echo, flange, etc.). The vocals are mixed perfectly, allowing the listener to hear the rest of the band. Also a plus, the vocal tracking doesn’t have “studio magic” attempting to cover up what the singer couldn’t deliver — for instance, three-quarters of the way through the second track, “Elevator Music,” I could imagine that another band would’ve tried to make themselves sound so much more epic by adding that fuzz box blown-out speaker-megaphone compressor effect that lots of emo/pop-punk bands add to the quiet parts of songs, breakdowns, etc… but I Call Fives didn’t, and I think that should be noted.

They do stick to the typical verse/chorus/verse format for their songs, but there are enough riffs, licks, arpeggios, and mini-solos (the high pitched twinkly guitar parts that make every pop-punk song) to keep you satisfied. The drummer doesn’t rely on fills, nor does it sound like he’s been playing for two weeks and is ripping off early Blink 182. No part of the band sticks out as a reason to listen to their music; they work better as a whole, and that’s what makes them great.

The best part of this EP is that they are lyrically memorable, delivering the vocals in a very tongue-in-cheek manner. Yes, the themes of moving on, being on tour, and (in the case of “Elevator Music”) hating that someone special (the chorus shouts “I hope this song is the elevator music on your way to hell!”) are somewhat familiar in the genre, but the way I Call Fives goes about it is fresh.  They also have the “pretty acoustic song for the girls” at the end of the EP to bring it to a proper close. No stone was left unturned by these guys, and I can’t wait to hear what they deliver next.

(No Sleep Records, 16651 Gothard Street, Unit E, Huntington Beach, CA 92647)