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There’s a bit of pop punk’s upbeat, defiant, hopeful energy coming off the songs on Letters From Home, the latest from Birthday Candles. But there’s also more sonic detail in the melodies than is often encountered in a lot of that music. “Otherside” and “Without a Trace” begin with a more delicate touch than the other three songs, but they also engage in the kind of anthemic progressions you’d expect from any melodic punk band with a leg in the relatively more complex emotional dimensions of emo. All genre considerations aside, these five tunes sound as if they were written at the end of a chapter of a life rather than employing the usual tropes found in too much punk of late. Think more Gaslight Anthem than Blink-182, songs that are genuinely earnest rather than maudlin.
