A mediocre return

Grade: C

In a day and age where pop punk bands fail to distinguish themselves, it is hard for a band to maintain a sound that its fans can call their own. Halifax is still searching for its unique hook.
The California pop-punkers have been on a four-year hiatus since their last album The Inevitability of a Strange World. Last April, the band released two songs that hinted towards a possible return for the scenesters.
Fast-forward a little more than a year and the band has returned to the spotlight with a six song EP, Align. With its fans anxiously waiting weeks for the release, the band, ultimately, fails to deliver on their latest effort.
Halifax struggles to create a sound that has not been heard before. Even after seven years experience, Align is just another generic pop-punk album. In a genre that is so competitive, it is essential that a band find a niche to call its own.
Any traditional fan of the band, or just the pop-punk sound in general, won't hate the EP. The one bright spot of Align is probably "Breathe". Of all the songs on the album, this track showed the most originality. Although it sets a high bar for creativity and uniqueness, the rest of the album fails to follow suit.
What set the band apart when Inevitability of a Strange World came out was that it was still working in a time where the scene was being formed. It could easily stand out.
But four years and thousands of pop punk bands later, Halifax is destined just to fade into the sea of mediocre pop punk bands. It is sad to see a band that has been around for so long fail to raise to the occasion with their latest release.
Align just goes to show that just because a band hangs around a scene for a while it does not mean that it can still make music. With the EP being only 20 minutes long, it is quick and easy to listen to it, but don't expect to be blown away by these "veterans."

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