Twelve Summers Old

12 Summers Old are a quintessential Warped Tour band. They're a textbook example of the type of band that plays one of the tour's several side stages and wins over the crowd, no matter how small or large, at every show. 12 Summers Old are certainly mining the emo/pop punk sound for all its worth. On the youthfully robust, This Could Get Dangerous, the St. Louis band effectively exploits three power chords, emotional, higher register vocals and bouncy energy. They also marry their sound with a stylish, semi-dark image. Those are all the qualities, both physical and sonic, that the "kids" latch on to, and 12 Summers Old posses them in spades.

"Night To Remember," "Sinners Lose Their Legs" and "Corey Haim" are hooky toons for teens that jump out of the speakers with guitar-charged fervor, but 12 Summers Old aren't doing anything that dozens of bands of their ilk haven't done already! You can't swing a dead cat without hitting a band that uses kitschy song titles, writes lyrics prime for robust sing-a-longs and jams ferocious power chords! 12 Summers Old give it their all, performing with more energy than an ADD-addled middle schooler after binging on a case of Red Bull and a box of sugary cereal. That said, they're not exactly breaking any new ground in a densely populated genre. The songs on This Could Get Dangerous skew towards a younger, more impressionable demographic and are frivolously enjoyable and emphasize the "pop" over the "punk" in a Blink 182 sorta way.

— Amy Sciarretto
10.10.08