4/5 Stars

North Sentinel Island marks the fifth studio album from Southern Illinois punks The Copyrights. The band play it pretty true to their poppish punk roots, and in the process deliver arguably their best, most honest work to date.

Named after one of the more remote islands in the world (home to, at most, 400 people, all of whom have been essentially untouched by modern society), North Sentinel Island gathers a lot of its lyrical content from traditional punk rock themes: hopelessness, isolation and  abandonment all factor into the equation pretty heavily. How can we make this right/ When we cant even speak at night/ Were fucked beyond belief tonight sing Brett and the boys over a pretty heavy rock riff that would make Dave Grohl proud on the albums opening track, Trustees of Modern Chemistry, (the title of which is an incredibly awesome obscure reference).

The tales of hopeless wanderlust continue from there: All of my crutches are breaking my bones chime the band en chorus in the albums second track, Crutches, backed by a more traditional melodic pop-punk tune. Expatriate Blues is a faster, more uptempo track featuring the line Im not homesick, Im sick of home; a line that perhaps best sums up the albums theme better than any other. From the mouths of many of the other, less-mature bands in the game, a song about being filled with more alcohol than blood would sound obnoxious and overly hedonistic. There is a certain amount of introspective sincerity here, however, that makes it sound more cathartic than anything.

Some tracks (Bow Down and Restless Head specifically) are a little too poppy for my own personal tastes, but the remainder hit much harder and keep the album moving steadily forward. Expatriate Blues, The New Ground Floor and Well-fed and Warm all pack a particularly high octane punch, while the riffs in Trustees of Modern Chemistry and 20 Feet Tall are among the catchiest the band has produced to date.

Nobody is going to accuse The Copyrights or reinventing the pop-punk wheel, though Id argue that it isnt a wheel that even needs re-inventing. Their level of unpretentious honesty shows that there are a lot more miles left on these tires, and that you really should be along for the ride.

(DyingScene.com)