I remember in Junior High when punk first became mainstream with great bands like Green Day, Offspring, Rancid, and even Bad Religion. However, over the years it seemed like commercialized punk bands felt the need to be poppier-sounding, and the lyrics started to involve love, girlfriends, and breakups. That's why ten years later we have radio-friendly "pop-punk" bands like New Found Glory, All-American Rejects, Simple Plan, The Ataris, Sum 41, American Hi-Fi, Fenix TX, SR-71, and of course, the mother of all pop-punk, Good Charlotte.

With the help of airplay on MTV, Sugarcult has become like one of these bands. Many teenagers and college kids will enjoy their sophomore effort, but there was nothing about the album that completely blew me away. I guess "Palm Trees and Power Lines" is pretty much your average pop-punk record. The first track, "She's the Blade" had a catchy, minor-chord sound that made for a great singalong in the car. However, one of the songs that really got me going was "Memory," which had a rockin' pop-punk feel with lyrics about, of course, love. "Worst December" was another poppy song with lyrics like "All I want to do is lie in bed with you." The main song that drew me in was "Back to California," which was a nice melodrama with dramatic lyrics like "Drive all night, to hold you tight, back to California, we couldn't win in the end." This was a song that kind of got me to feel. Most of the rest of the CD had that standard Southern California-pop-punk sound that most girlfriends would love. Some of those songs included punkish cuts like "What You Say" and typical "love-gone-bad" songs like "Crying" and "Over." By the end of the CD, I felt like I had just listened to a record that I'd heard ten times before.