H2O, “Don’t Forget Your Roots” LP

cover-h2o-rootsFor thems that like their punk with a little more edge, yet still retaining certain anthemic, sing-along qualities, look no further than the lastest from long-running youth-crew hardcore vets H2O. Like their forebears 7 Seconds, H2O have always hewn close to the pop edge of hardcore.

Hell, if you take away the lowered tunings of the likes of Sick of It All, and pulled away from the breakneck speed of acts such as Youth of Today, pretty much all old-school hardcore is built around the idea of getting crowds to join in with the band. It’s like Kevin Seconds said: “The crew is me / The crew is you / Yeah, we’re the crew.”

Anyhow, on their second album for Bridge 9, H2O delivers a collection of covers. They’re all pretty faithful to the originals, but the New York quintet does a pretty good job of putting their spin on certain tracks, especially the Mighty Mighty Bosstones’ “Someday I Suppose.” The original is a ska-core classic, but H2O manages to throw a little Madball flavor on their take.

This is by no means a necessary release, and I’d much rather have had an EP of new tunes than an LP of covers, but the liner notes do a solid job of explaining why the group picked each track, and what these bands have meant to H2O. And, hell – if one kid goes out and buys a Warzone record instead of something from Skrillex, then Don’t Forget Your Roots has done its job.

The LP comes on a variety of colors, and you can still snag red and white from the Bridge 9 store. I think mine came on purple? It looks great, with an insert that shows all the records from which the songs were drawn, and a download card, as well.