Transit – Keep This To Yourself
Boston band Transit seem to be generating a fair bit of interest with their upbeat pop-punk and impressive work ethic, and seconds into explosive opener 'Dear Anyone' it's easy to see why; It's instantly catchy and the band clearly have a discerning ear for melody. The band manage to maintain the quality and momentum for the next three tracks, quite often sounding immediately familiar, like you've heard them before. Unfortunately, by track five, 'Return Address' they seem to run out of steam. The musicianship is of the same calibre as on the preceding tracks, but the melodies just seem to dry up and it suddenly becomes pop-punk-by-numbers. The lack of quality control is a real shame, as "Keep This To Yourself" would have been a monster of an album if the latter part of the album was on a par with start. As it is, they could have made a great EP.
I know you're not supposed to judge a book by its cover, and I suppose the same should be said for cds but, looking at the artwork for "Keep It To Yourself" I was half expecting some arty alt-rock rather than the polished punk rock on offer. Designed to look like an airmail letter, and with songs to match ('Dear Anyone', 'Hope This Finds You Well', 'P.S.'), Transit have obviously put some effort into the presentation of the album, it's just a crying shame they didn't maintain the same attention to detail when it came to the tracklisting.
In no way is "Keep This To Yourself" a bad album, it's just that, after raising the bar so high on the first few tracks, Transit inevitably fall short on the tracks that follow.