Reliving the 2000’s with Sunrise Skater Kids New Album: “Friendville”

After a dream come true, YouTuber Jarrod Alonge released his first full-length album under his comedy pop-punk band, Sunrise Skater Kids. In early March, Alonge started an Indiegogo account with the hopes to crowd-fund a full-length album by offering prizes for different donation amounts. I made a donation, and ended up with a pretty sweet band snapback hat. After almost tripling his original pledge goal of $10,000 on April 1, Sunrise Skater Kids first full length album “Friendville” was released.

As someone who used to spend all day and night listening to pop-punk and emo bands during my middle school years, it was a pretty fun ride on the nostalgia train listening to this album. Sunrise Skater Kids’ main music focus is to be a comedic satirical Pop-Punk band with lyrics that take jabs at popular music culture and the teenage angst that we could all relate to at sometime in our lives.

After one month, “Friendville” continues to hold the number one spot on the Billboard Top Comedy Albums chart. One of the more notable songs is “Rylo Ken,” an acoustic song in the perspective of the “Star Wars” villain Kylo Ren as he is conflicted with joining the dark side. My personal favorite song of the album has to be “All of the Old Things” which is a medley of countless pop-punk songs from the early 2000’s like “Fat Lip” by Sum 41 ranging to “Ocean Avenue” by Yellowcard. The lyrics are changed much like a Weird Al song, but each song joins together to tell the story of how “OG” emo kids feel about new popular music.

All in all, I would give Sunrise Skater Kids album “Friendville” a 3.5/5 stars for its large handful of great songs and a spattering of so-so’s. I recommend this album to anyone that has gone through an emo phase at some point in their lives, or anyone who is a fan of the early 2000’s pop-punk genre.