Turf Wars＜Gold Vinyl＞

On their second album, Vancouver based melodic hardcore outfit Daggermouth dial back considerably on some of the cutesy affectations that made their debut Stallone a fairly frustrating listen. The song titles are still unbearably coy, but less so than before, and the band has dropped the stylistic affectations that broke the flow of their debut. At 11 songs in 22 minutes, in fact, Turf Wars is Daggermouth distilled to their essence: two-minute songs delivered with street punk's chanted gang choruses, hardcore velocity and pop-punk's melodic strengths. "Frisky Business" and "You Can't Soar Like an Eagle When You Hang out with Turkeys" are particularly tuneful, with excellent choruses and catchy guitar riffs. Most importantly, singer Nick Leaday has improved greatly as a vocalist, eliminating the traces of emo whine that colored the debut. Turf Wars is still fairly standard-issue ramalama stuff, but it's solidly listenable from start to finish, which alone makes it a big improvement from their promising but ultimately unsatisfying debut. ~ Stewart Mason