The Skinney

After screwing around with EPs for most of the their career, Philmont’s has finally released their first full-length album. However five tracks on Attention were previously released on the 2008 Oh Snap! EP, and the band’s best punk rock song “Hello Jack” first debuted in 2007 on the Photosynthetic EP. So the up-and-coming punk band’s first big album turns out to be a half-original disappointment from a track listing stand point. Sadly the project doesn’t sport any ground breaking tunes either. From the peppy electronically fueled “Back Down” to the poppy, corny “Setting Off” the musical merit falls somewhere between Stellar Kart and Everyday Sunday. However a few of the new tracks manage balance the disc with their soft, piano driven approaches as both the “Letter To The Editor” and the final ballad “The Terminal” are solid. The best that Philmont has to offer was mainly in the Oh Snap! EP even when it came down to the lyrics. From the doctor/patient analogy of salvation in “My Hippocratic Oath” to the call to stand out as believer in “The Difference” (‘If You're really inside changing my life/You would shine, You would be evident’) the older songs easily overshadow the newer songs weaker songwriting. Although Attention is a fun, upbeat, album, the band has some distance to cover before they can be categorized with Hawk Nelson or even touch Relient K level.