Artist: Transition
Album: Get There
Label: Floodgate Records
Tracks: 11
Length: 38:14
Review By: John Durkee

Transition is a Pittsburgh, PA pop punk band that stems its influences from bands like MXPX, Jimmy Eat World and The Get Up Kids. Get There is Transition's first release for Floodgate Records, and is produced by MXPX’s Mike Herrera. From what I hear on the album, I’d say he did a mostly good job. The dynamics of the songs are decent, lyrically the band is fairly positive, and the melodies are pretty respectable as well.

Get There is for all intensive purposes this is a pretty typical pop punk release.

And yet…

To say this album is a typical pop punk release really doesn’t quite do it justice. It’s true that it follows the tropes and clichés of pop punk to a T, and seems to lack creativity, it is still done skillfully, and for that reason should be respected. At their best, Transition sounds like they could be another Jimmy Eat World, and at their worst they sound like the opening band at your local high school’s battle of the bands (you know, the one that did covers of MXPX and Green Day?).

The biggest problem Transition’s Get There has is that the record wanes on you as you listen to it and wanes even more so with further listens. Sure, it has some good parts, but most of the time the best it can do is remind you of another band that’s better. The other problem is how hit and miss the vocals are. On some songs they come off very nasal or very throaty, and at other times the vocals are clean and sung well as if through the diaphragm (well, maybe not entirely, but there are definitely times when the vocals are sung pretty well).

So, needless to say, if you’re a big MXPX fan or a fan of the genre of pop punk in general, this is a decent enough release. You can likely find better, but you could certainly do worse.