Yellowcard

Yellowcard belongs to the very exclusive club of emo-leaning pop-punk bands that are named after soccer violations and feature a violinist who does on-stage backflips. Gymnastics aside, though, the presence of Sean Mackin (the Itzhak Perlman of the Warped Tour set) is hardly a gimmick; his adroit bow-handling adds buckets of texture and depth to the California-via-Florida quintet's somewhat formulaic crunchy guitars, whip-snap drumming and semi-snotty singing. Ain't no doubt the kids are still continuing to eat it up: Yellowcard got tons of mileage out of the smash single "Ocean Avenue," the nostalgia-laden title track from its 2003 platinum-selling major-label debut, before dropping this year's Lights and Sounds. But if entertaining the masses isn't enough public service, the band has also given hope to long-suffering orchestra nerds everywhere that they, too, can be rock stars someday. And for that, Yellowcard must be saluted.