8

Driving You All The Way Home

Ah the record label compilation has made a comeback - it's the perfect cash in really - diehard fans and completists will rush out to grab this from the record shelves they can barely reach and youths who have always wanted to "get in to" the label's music have a perfect introduction to the roster - credibility never came so easy. Drive Thru have had a bit of a rocky patch recently with major buy ins and outs, band losses etc but this compilation shows exactly how and why they gained their devoted fan base in the first place - remember when pop punk was cool? I do, and Drive Thru were at the forefront of the movement, you can't deny it Richard and Stephanie Reines have an ear for the catchiest of the catchy.

From New Found Glory's 'My Friends Over You' and The Starting Lines' 'Best Of Me' to the slightly more emotion driven Finch tracks and Senses Fail tracks that feature here, all are the top of the crop of commercial pop rock for the teens of the 00's, long before the days of My Chemical Romance and Fall Out Boy were topping the charts and making TRL appearances.

To those who have doubted Drive Thru's diversity, and I oft being one of them -this does display the variation they do encapsulate within their own genre, the acoustic warmth of 'Ever So Sweet' by the Early November, the pop punk vigour of Allister's 'Somewhere On Fullerton', the piano driven 'I Woke Up In A Car' by Something Corporate, the scream-emo of Finch. These may all seem like trends that have passed through music's categorised subculture of "punk" during the past few years but I assure you Drive Thru stamped themselves all over them before boys wearing eyeliner and girls' jeans made a comeback. This is the youth of America's soundtrack, Fenix TX and Hello Goodbye bringing the most diversity and crispness to the record; it's fun and hearty, driven and made for the young kids who like bands who grow up with and in front of them. Drive Thru's compilation gives reassurance and reason to hold faith in the label that's still growing up.