THE COPYRIGHTS Schallplatten & CDs

Review: The 21st Century is riddled with new ghosts, according to this somewhat surprise comeback EP from pop rock veterans, The Copyrights. A four tracker that runs headfirst into themes of relationships collapsing and our inability to truly leave them in the past thanks to the hyper connectivity of our digitised world, the idea is simple - with each passing day we deal with a new haunting. Music, however, can be our salvation. Creative expression, artistic declarations and explorations of emotions we may not always know what to do with until we properly look at the options. On 'New Ghosts', the band go for a main stage guitar sound that nods to pop punk and then dives headfirst into stadium indie, catharsis on on the scale of anthems.

Review: The Copyrights are a pop punk band from Illinois who have been working steadfast on their ear-catching sound since 2003. After so many years hopping from label to label (but often orbiting Chicago's Red Scare), they're landing on the mighty Fat Wreck Chords with one of their biggest albums to date. If you know Fat Mike's label then you know what you're in for here - insanely catchy blasts of radio-friendly punk rock - but The Copyrights have been doing this long enough to know how to give their music an edge. There's a certain gnarliness in the riffs, a snarl around the edge of those big choruses, which shows they're not making throwaway chart fodder here. This is pop punk for the true lifers, and one of the band's finest achievements to date.