"ON THE MOVE" REVIEWS!

N.B.T.- The Next Big Thing - Lindsay Hutton.
Review link: http://nextbigthing.blogspot.com/
" The Leftovers – On The Move (Rally Records)
A quick google on the name throws up many bands called The Leftovers but this is the three piece from Portland, Maine that we're dealing with here. Imagine The Smithereens wearing jetpacks and harbouring some Tommy James and The Shondells intent. 13 songs clocking in at just below 29 minutes, looking at them on the cover, you'd never think that three youngsters could kick up such a full-blooded racket. They've been abetted in their mission by the aforementioned Mr Weasel and his sequencing has been carried out with precision rock'n'roll action in mind. This is what I expected The Fratellis to sound like according to their press. Superior pop hammered out with a gusto that's rare in these processed pre-packed, pigeon-holed times. I'm sure that yours truly is well outside their demographic but they're bloody stuck with me. The sound is as clean as a whistle and that drum propulsion really carries the epic proportions of the "teenage excitement, romance and mystery". The Leftovers are anything but."

http://www.aversion.com
Review Link:
http://www.aversion.com/bands/reviews.cfm?f_id=3197

"Get any punk rocker talking and, sooner or later, you'll get him reminiscing about the good old days. Could be he talks of 1977, maybe 1982, maybe 1986. Everybody, it seems, in the punk underground lost their heart to a bygone era. Fair enough.

But when The Leftovers start waxing nostalgic on On the Move, they're not stuck on one of punk's halcyon heydays, but whip out an uncut love of mid-'90s pop punk. Sure, it was derided by everyone at the time, but The Leftovers' brand of spiky, buzzy pop-punk anthems show it might not be too much longer before we're waxing nostalgic about the glory days of 1996. Gearing up guitars just noisy enough to leave your ears ringing without destroying the trio's innate melodies, The Leftovers drink from the same well of inspiration that used to quench acts such as The Queers, The Riverdales and Chixdiggit. And if that set of influences isn't exactly the hippest formula to be working from in just about any circle, it's not going to dampen The Leftovers' enthusiasm.

Ripping into 13 lightening-speed pop tunes simply for the fun of it, On the Move is a reminder of pop punk's more innocent days, days before MySpace kids' fickle interests, underage bloggers and the mall-punk phenomenon derailed its giddy, proud-to-wallow-in-obscurity spirit. It's something that many of today's young nippers might not even recognize for what it is. With 13 cuts -- and nary a one that sticks around beyond the three-minute mark -- that superbly straddle the line between garage dissonance and high-fructose ear candy, The Leftovers play pop-punk like it's supposed to be: young, loud and poppy. The act's formula doesn't vary a bit throughout On the Move, but it doesn't really need to: singer/bassist Kurt Baker's tales of single-serving heartbreaks come at listeners with a one-two punch of his deliciously tuneful tenor and harmonies provided by guitarist Andrew Rice, who's also a master at drenching his rapid-fire progressions in pearls of buzzy distortion. Baker and drummer Adam Woronoff keep tempos just slightly below the speed-freak levels. As the band crashes through its set list, songs like "Run Real Fast," "She She She" and "Mind Off You" hint that the band's looked deeper than the overlooked pantheon of '90s pop-punk, as shades of Beach Boys, Ramones and Big Star melodies seep through the cracks and gum everything together.

These days, every punk band under the sun has an angle, a crazy haircut, a dude who can scream while another dude sings or a fascination with confusing emotional problems with physical injuries. Not so with The Leftovers: On the Move is the sort of straight-up chunk of three-chord pop meant as an escape from all the posturing in the mainstream. Isn't that what really got you into pop punk in the first place?

- Matt Schild "

source: http://www.thetripwire.com/reviews/2007/7/19/on-the-move
Release Date: 07.10.07
At first I was skeptical about listening to and objectively reviewing the new album from The Leftovers, thinking that the name of their band was as stale as a month old piece of rib eye steak. Honestly, the cockeyed notion of some new power-pop punk posse with the fortifying capability of knocking my checkered socks off at this comatose point in time when punk rock struggles to laboriously breathe from a rusty respirator was slim to fricken none. But holy shit if these auspicious young punks from Portland Maine of all places didn't make my weathered brain numb like a night spent sipping Crown Royal whiskey from a flask under the right field bleachers while the herd of nerds boogie down inside the high school gymnasium at the ice cream social.

Kurt Baker (bass, vocals), Andrew Rice (guitar, vocals), and Adam Woronoff (drums) formed in 2002 and shoved their first full length Stop, Drop, Rock N Rol down the throats of all wanting mouths in 2004, gaining attention from old school ears like that of Larry Livermore, founder of Lookout Records. If that prominent imprint of the early 90s So Cal punk scene hadn't squandered all of their funds and gone belly up (after Green Day yanked their back catalog) they would be the ideal home for these adorable young whippersnappers from Portland Maine, where the most punk thing that a kid could do would be to spit on a sidewalk or turn right on red.

"We met at the party tonight" are the first lyrics that come ringing out of On The Move, a scalding burst of twenty-something angst which knocks a clock off the wall with twenty-eight minutes of thrilling power-pop. Every song on this spectacular recording is as catchy as Tuberculosis on an airplane. Verse-chorus-verse, back up vocals in just the right places, NOFX said it best - "please play this song on the radio."

If your dopey ears miss the snotty ring from the thwack of Descendents, Bouncing Souls, Mr. T Experience, John Cougar Concentration Camp, J Church, Riverdales, Wynona Riders, or Screeching Weasel then you should without a diggity doubt scrounge up enough change to seize On The Move from The Leftovers. I'm not only impress but ecstatic to boast about these charming young twerps who unexpectedly bedazzled my grumpy old ears. What fun bastards these boys truly are! I just hope that they stick to the Pennsylvania-based Rally Records, rather than end up licensing their music to some shitty new WB series.

Recorded at Smart Studios in Madison Wisconsin by Ben Weasel (he's an asshole, Ben Weasel he's a jerk), these thirteen atomic bombs will blast those stupid piercings out of your rotten face like a squishy white pimple, savagely transporting your adolescent physique back to the glorious years of all-ages shows when vibrant young kiddos pogoed and moshed and wrecked circle pits with clinched fists and spiked wrists at fucking 924 Gilman Street or in the goddamn Stop-N-Slurp parking lot.

Review From WonkaVision:
The Leftovers – "On the Move"
Published July 15th, 2007 in L.
Much like Spock, Superman, and Jesus Christ, pop punk won't stay dead. The genre's latest corpse slingers: The Leftovers and their album, "On the Run." Delivering pop punk in the vein of The Ergs!, Allister, MxPx, and, ya know… The Ramones, "On the Run" recycles a ton of riffs and topics but still delivers everything all of the pinheads across America could possibly want.

Album opener "Run Real Fast" sets the plan for the album within 10 seconds of its start – chugging, simple power chords, frenetic drums, and bubblegum lyrics abound. Lyrically, the song consists of chasing tail, trying to avoid a beatdown, and needing shock treatment, three very pop punk sentiments. With an Elvis Costello-like croon, The Leftovers recall an encounter with a super cute female-type person with a "leather jacket and Weasel pin." The Screeching Weasel reference isn't just a plea for credibility, though, as Ben Weasel himself produced and sequenced "On the Move." Peppy and fun, "Run Real Fast" is a worthy introduction to The Leftovers.

The same bubblegum surf rock fun continues on track two, "Dance With Me." It's a toss up as to whether "Run Real Fast" or "Dance With Me" is the more infectious track, but what's undeniable is that the two make for a sugarcoated one-two blast of pop punk righteousness. "Dance With Me" keeps up the loser-in-love pose, innocent and desperate a la Buzzcocks. There are few giddier pleasures than when the band drops out before one final rousing chorus of "Dance with me, dance with me/And take my hand and walk with me, walk with me/I think you're gonna be the one baby, one baby."

There's 11 tracks following "Run Real Fast" and "Dance With Me," and they all follow the same pop punk formula. Some are just under two minutes; some are just over. But they're all basically the same. As catchy as something like "Lose Your Head" can be, listeners could very easily confused it with lesser tracks like "Camel" up until the chorus. This problem is basically the only offense one can charge "On the Move" with, that it is homogenous to a fault. But as far as opening shots go, the album is a winning creation. Fuck Fall Out Boy; much like their contemporaries The Ergs! and The Steinways, The Leftovers are bring back pop punk for realsies. [By: Joe Pelone]

Rating: 3.5/5
Release Date: June 12, 2007

The Leftovers - On The Move
Label: Rally Records
Release Date: July 10, 2007

I'm a sucker for mindless pop punk that just makes you want to dance. I have been for years, I along with a vast majority of you was a part of the "Drive-Thru Generation". I bought every record that label put out and just loved it. But things had to change, and not necessarily for the better. One thing I didn't know then was that there is boundaries in the word pop punk. Since they were never promoted, and I didn't go out of my way to find them, I didn't hear Screeching Weasel or The Queers until at least two years ago. But they're about as mindless as you get. Not in a bad way, it's just their lyrics are straight up and anyone can relate to them. Another band that I've grown to love from this type of old school sounding pop punk is the Portland, Maine trio, The Leftovers. Whom released this record I'm about to review.

This year, the band released their 5th album, which is known as On The Move. It was recorded at Butch Vig's Smart Studios in Madison, WI and was produced by Ben Weasel of Screeching Weasel fame. As soon as you begin to spin this record, you know you're in for an interesting ride. The opening track "Run Real Fast" tells the story of a guy running away from a girls boyfriend. It's pretty self explanatory and most of the songs are a lot like this. So it's a very predictable record as far as that goes. The second track "Dance With Me" is as catchy as the title entails. It continues track by track the same way. "Pick And Choose" and "Lose Your Head" features some old school pop sensibilities a la the Beach Boys. It's great driving music, you'd look cool driving down the California coast listening to this on any day in the last forty years.

While I still don't know all that much about this type of pop punk, I do know that it's catchy and can be loved just as much as your typical Warped Tour scene whore band complete with black nail polish. If you just want to forget what you're doing for a while and just listen to some feel good music without any of the long song titles or other expectancies of modern pop punk, I would definitely suggest taking a listen to this. It's over in under a half hour, and it's great for those with short attention spans.