Nobody Can Take What Everybody Owns

On their third album, Waxwing get back to the emo-punk sound that inspired them to form a band in the first place. Nobody Can Take What Everybody Owns is passionate, earnest, and more aggressive and the band has never sounded better. Singer/songwriter Rocky Votolato is vocally reminiscent of Jimmy Eat World's Jim Adkins. A boyish charm surrounds him, but Votolato aches in concern. Nobody Can Take What Everybody Owns shows Waxwing's self-awareness of society's own paranoia and estrangement against the mental war of trust versus dejection. Life's minimizer is at the heart of "The Worst Kind of Liars." Guitars are somber and Votolato's vocals quiver in a beautiful kind of pain. The jagged edges of "Colour" dance around communication breakdowns while "Records" vigorously rips apart commercial conformity. Waxwing doesn't exactly do anything new when it comes to establishing new millennium punk rock. What they do is keep it tight and keep it simple. Nobody Can Take What Everybody Owns is a heavy record that's lyrically bombastic and feverish in sound. They pick apart what aggravates them personally about the world — and that's what punk rock has done from the start.