The Toothaches, Sucker Punch

review by dave heaton

They look beat-up on the cover but I’m not sure I’m buying it; it looks like horror-movie make-up. But the song they’re dressing up for, “Sucker Punch”, does packs a punch, surprisingly so for an indie-pop band also trafficking in sweet melodies. That the vicious punch they’re singing about is one of love (“your kiss is like a fist to the gut”) only makes the manic energy seem more appropriate, like the rampant beating of a newly overcome heart. The song on the flip side, “The Lucky Ones”, is in no way weaker. A songwriter’s take on using other people’s lives as song fodder, it has a great driving rhythm and equally insistent melody. And a great final line: “if my songs outlive my love, will you ever forgive me?” Taken together, the two songs here do represent a sucker-punch of their own. They bowled me over quickly.

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