Digger

Monte Carlo (Hopeless)
by Scott Hefflon

While “pop punk with emo thrown in” sounds about as attractive to me as getting a spy satelitte shoved up my ass, I like Digger. Despite the pretty bad self-production (the drums sound like tapping a Cool Whip container with your fingertips), there are melodies here, and that yelping’n’yearning stuff I guess qualifies as emo, and that undescribable quality called genuinness that just can’t be faked. It’s really hard to point out what makes Digger any different or better than anyone else, but they are. Quick punkpop tunes matched by dawdling guitar indie rock, Monte Carlo is a 15-song peach I could suck on all day.
(www.hopelessrecords.com)