Ten Foot Pole – Escalating Quickly LP (Thousand Island Records)

Skate punk legends are back with a brand new album. After their retrospective Setlist CD, these longstanding punk rockers managed to treat us with another banger called Escalating Quickly which brings some innovations in their sound, comprised of some noncharacteristic instruments such as keyboards and percussions, or some electronic loops, which are added in a couple of songs. The tunes are much more pop-punk oriented and unlike their previous albums, Escalating Quickly is slightly weirder, unique and full of brilliant arrangements comprised of various genuine approaches to the standard melodic punk rock style. The tunes are also slightly slower, there are only a couple really fast tracks, but it will not spoil all the fun to those who are truly deep into the sound of Ten Foot Pole. To be fair, it would be such a shame not to explore with different styles when almost all the skate punk bands sound the same and in my book, Escalating Quickly perhaps doesn’t satisfy the classic punk rock standards, but they definitely nailed it both musically and ideally. The band goes beyond punk rock cliche and explores the vast world of pop music, rock or perhaps some indie music, but once again Escalating Quickly sounds alike Ten Foot Pole we all love and respect, so this album is definitely a gamechanger in their comprehensive discography with tons of potential hits. The band still sounds tight and the vocals of Dennis Jaggard are still killing it, so really there’s no proper excuse not to love this material. Escalating Quickly has been published by Thousand Islands Records and it comes with brilliant cover artwork of the cowboys playing a good old game of poker while the barfight is commencing at the very background. Pick this one up if you’re truly a fan of Ten Foot Pole and enjoy in another great material by these legendary punk rockers.