Issue #2 is of course the follow up record to Issue #1 by The Middlenight Men who are Nick Hughes from The Role Models slightly sprawling indie pop punk band whose main players are Leon Cave, Heidi Cotton, Liz Mitchell, Andy Watts, Joe Langan, Bob McDougal, Andy Brook and Hannah Grimes it was produced and mixed by Jason Perry and Dave Draper.
The album opens with The Middlenight Men Theme leading us into the band's world of late night shenanigans, the pop punk stylings belie the sleaze at the bands heart, as they implore you to come and join the band, which the 9 core members have already done being joined by no less than 14 special guests.
Fighting Skyler has a video games, punky punch up feel, as it flies along, before the female vocals come in to let you know just what a battle this is.
Bruno makes me wonder is this about Bruno the Ali G character or Frank Bruno, the guitars are muscular enough for the latter, despite the pleas to be a Bumble Bee like they are Mercury Rev obsessives who are also glued to the Nancy Drew mysteries every chance they get.
Nightlines strays into being a fist pumping anthem with gently autotuned vocals that is a bit Blink 182 meets Sum 41.
Living In The Heart Of Hell a slower pensive song for the victims of the fire and other tragedies that befall the central character who believes he's living in the heart of hell that probably turns out to be Burnt Oak, as he tries to convince everyone of how tragic his life is, so much so he has to have a long drawn out hairspray guitar solo.
The Fear is that this song isn't catchy enough and the fans won't be singing along, as the insidious riff worms its way into your brain, all the smart lyrics get to you as does the brass section.
The Machine has a distinctly eastern European flavour musically as this dark twisted tale of the all-encompassing Machine unfurls.
Sirens as a vaguely psychedelic backwards guitar style feel to this, but with a central riff that won't let up, like those Sirens that keep blaring.
The Kids We Want To Be has an slow strummed acoustic guitar, with gentle percussion as it slowly builds into a swaying ballad as you look round and wonder how your dreams mutated and you ended up here.
Best Days Of Our Lives could almost be a soaring metal tune in the style of The Darkness but fused with some far more interesting elements, as they try to learn a few lessons along the way about what happened during the Best Days Of Our Lives.
The Album closes with The Longest Goodbye that is every bit as drawn out and epic as the title suggests, no doubt featuring band intros and individual solos live that will draw this out from 4 to 10 or 12 minutes long, but like this it's just a really good pop punk goodbye.
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