Jeff Ott
, the singer/songwriter of Bay Area darlings
Fifteen
, has a lot of steam to let out. If he isn't reminiscing about spending the summer with a beautiful girl, he's speaking the gospel of peace, the environment and one big helping of "can't we all just get along?" These guys are just trying to fight the good fight even if it comes across as preachy and force fed down our throats. And with their second album,
The Choice of a New Generation
, there's plenty of this to be found to go along with the rough edge pop-punk; sort of like
Green Day
suffering a case of laryngitis. Not surprisingly, the lengths of each song are at an epic proportion, in punk terms -- most exceed three minutes. Despite it all, none of the songs on
gets old, the music is incredibly catchy and it's always nice to listen to coherent lyrics that actually have some meaning behind them. ~ Mike DaRonco