Fight Fair - 'Settle the Score'

No. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck no.

San Diego, Calif. crew Fight Fair dishes out autotuned easycore with a dash of dancefloor electronics sprinkled around. Think New Found Glory mashed up with Hellogoodbye. Not bad enough? OK, fine, dick, pretend they sound like 3OH!3. On their Triple Crown debut, Settle the Score, Fight Fair serves up eight such indistinguishable craptastic tunes.

The group’s formula is simple: Start with overproduced pop-punk, add breakdowns, and throw in some studio vocal tricks. Oh, cute, that sounds like a vocoder. Oh wow, “Pop Rocks” opens with a Kool-Aid reference for no particular reason. The result: an unholy abomination! Kill it before it breeds!

Here’s the part where I try to say something nice in the interest of being fair and/or balanced, and I suppose I owe a band named Fight Fair as much. Fight Fair… they uh… hrm. Wait, OK, I got it. They definitely seem to understand their sound. The songs take on all the adolescent talking points: chicks, posers, and this thing called vinyl? I hear all albums sound better on it, even if they were digitally recorded. And the group shows some flashes of brilliance with their hooks, especially with the title track and “Beachfront Ave.” You might hate this band, but those choruses are still going to be stuck in your brain.

But being catchy and being good are two different things. Just look at ad jingles. And while Fair Fight does a decent job at synthesizing pop-punk and hardcore, it’s still laughable whenever the group tries leaning towards breakdowns and anything gruffer than nasally vocals. Based on their lyrics and the “Pop Rocks” music video, Fight Fair seems to like movie references. So here’s one: “I’m getting too old for this shit.”