New York Pop-Punksters State Champs unleash their third offering the Emo-bouncing ‘Living Proof’. Opener ‘Criminal’ touches down on all the Punk-Pop planets with light vocals, tight snare drums and pregnant musical pauses aplenty. The stair climbing, curtain drawing, blue skies for dark days anthemic jab, jab, punch formulaic song is pretty close to PP perfection. Next up is the vanilla ‘Frozen’ which is in need of some nuts, hot sauce and a cherry to offset the genre’s basic blandness. The ri-ri-ri-rising ‘Crystal Ball’ stutterers into the hip-shaking light before ‘Dead And Gone’ goes full American Pie soundtrack and even dropping F-Bomb can’t stop the “oh-oo’s, oh-oo’s” and sing-along chorus dragging you in. ‘Lightening’ is bound to be a live favourite while ‘Our Time To Go’ is a saccharine ballad that strangely holds the attention and staves off the cliches, just. The skinny sounding vocals come into their own on the obvious ‘Safe Haven’. The Punk Genre base is stretched like Hubba Bubba on ‘Something About You’ as the track nudges towards MTV bubblegum Pop while ‘The Fix Up’ is an offspring lite relationship ditty of fringe flicking futility. If you love Pop-Punk you’ll fall head over heels for State Champs, however for those looking for the next great movement/band/genre you may need to shop in a different aisle. Living Proof cross checks every Pop-Punk trick, movement and pulls all the late teen, early Twenties heartstrings (‘Criminal’ aside) without removing the safety belt of chart hunting conformity. These Paddling pool Punk’s remain a cut above their, fear of the deep end, rivals and in a genre that is desperately treading water they are at least swimming in the right direction.