The blurred boundary lines between Pop-Punk and just Pop are stretched to snapping point by Manchester’s Milestones debut ‘Red Lights’. The commercial radio heavy opener ‘BitterSweetHeart’ shimmy’s into shopping mall shenanigans, running down corridors, tripping over footballs and sharing a glance with your first true love over a malt shake. ‘Once Upon a Time’ has wooaaoo’s a plenty along with a sugary kooky blossoming approach. A promising fast start to ‘Paranoid’ carries on throughout the albums standout cut. Both ‘Against The World’ and ‘Eighteen’ fail to light the dynamite by being polished with an inch of their lives.
The shiny sheen over modern Pop-Punk is blinding the populous with its chart-friendly vanilla glow and this is glaringly obvious evident with Milestones. The sedate ‘Hold On’ may well be a teenage girl’s broken-hearted anthem, it would have resonated harder with just an acoustic guitar. ‘This Is My Life’, ‘End Game’ both merge into one while the sugary ‘Counting Cars’ is resuscitated with some superb vocals. Milestones will undoubtedly hit the spot for those discovering their virgin bands, love, emotion, and even death but for anyone over thirty this will pass over like an April shower. The jagged album edges that have been smoothed over are also the teeth with which enables music to bite with, next time let them snap a little.