Runners In The Nerved Worldis the first album Ohio’s The Sidekicks have released since their signing to the well-known label, Epitaph.
For a band who’ve been around since the late ’90s, The Sidekicks have managed to stay away from mainstream success. Which is surprising; their laidback indie-punk sound would have made them a perfect candidate for a one-hit wonder in the early 2000’s. They sound like the lovechild of The Shins and Fastball.
It’s not a lack of talent keeping them from mainstream attention; there just isn’t enough ‘unique’ about them to really separate them from the crowd. Runners In The Nerved World is good; the majority of the songs are fine, a couple are better, but none are bad. ‘Everything In Twos’, ‘The Kid Who Broke His Wrist’ and ‘Blissfield, MI’ all stand out, but the rest of the songs get hard to differentiate. Not in a bad way, necessarily – it makes for excellent background music.
This is the kind of album that might grow on you over time. It’s good, just not very special.
2.5/5.
