Pop punk? Who still listens to that.
That pulpy subgenre that brings out an audible groan out of so many. People have their preconceptions when you put the pop in front of the word punk. The punk constitutionalists argue that those two words cannot exist together. Pop is antithetical to the entire idea of punk. They cannot co-exist.
At the same time, since the Ramones, punk bands have always had a step towards melody. Punk just provided an alley to play music. It showed that anybody could do it. There wasn’t any prerequisite. All it took was a couple of power chords and slightly-off key melodies and maybe you had a catchy song.
You may try to intellectualize why a band is terrible, through lyrics or whatever you find hacky and lazy. But, chorus and melody is king. It rules over all, inserting itself in every idle moment.
Pelafina
In the world of pop punk, singing about relationships can be a tough position to throw yourself into. How much more can you speak about this all too familiar feeling? You don’t want to just become a long list in another band that sings about those same topics over and over again.
But, these preconceptions don’t matter with Pelafina. They have just the right amount of pop in pop punk. As I’m writing these words, certain phrases and guitar lines are skipping across in my mind.
Katie Steel Thomas is the centrifugal force of Pelafina. Everything feels grounded by her Her voice carries itself across each track she sings on. There is a resonance to her voice that begs for you to pay attention and listen.
Pelafina is the daily journal you write in every night before you go to sleep in which those thoughts that haunt or bother you are there plainly. It’s a barf of emotions, laid bare. It feels like you’re peering directly into Thomas’s inner thoughts. “I don’t really sing about anybody else but me”