One Flew West Release Debut Album

One Flew West released their debut album, The Blur, today on Smartpunk Records. Anyone that has read any of my previous reviews can guess that pop punk is my favorite musical genre. As such, I am always on the lookout for new bands. Fortunately, there have been a lot of great new bands over the last year. One Flew West can be added to this list.

The band hails from Longmont, Colorado which is located 30 miles north of Denver. While this is the band’s first full album, they previously released two Eps, Selective Memory (2015), and Trial and Error (2018). Leading up to the album the band released four singles including “Holes in My Jeans”, “Hopeless”, “The Blur”, and “Deep End”. These songs gave listeners a taste of what was come with The Blurs’ release.

Speaking about the title track, leader singer Linden Jackson says “At its core, ‘The Blur’ is a song about that feeling you get when you’re stuck down in the gutter and life just starts passing you by. This last year was crazy for all of us and it’s really easy to just disassociate and forget about the things that really matter to you. I wrote the song to try and pull myself up out of that gutter and remind myself that even when things get shitty, I’ll always have my best friends around to get me through it.”

Jackson reveals “‘Holes in My Jeans’ is a song about desperately wishing that you had a backup plan as you get older. When I was in my early 20’s everything seemed so easy and I never questioned that I was on the right path, but as I’ve gotten older I’ve found myself wishing that I would have set myself up for some kind of alternate plan if things don’t work out. Being in a band and having two parents with PHDs, it’s always been hard for me to not compare myself to that standard but being in a band is what I love doing and ‘Holes in My Jeans’ is about juggling those two dichotomies.”

The Blur is everything a pop punk album should be. Up tempo rhythms, bright vocals with some attitude, catchy lyrics, short and to the point songs, and forget those guitar solos. Jackson’s vocals resonant throughout, with just the right amount of guitar by DiSalvo. Overall, this is a very good debut album by the band.

One Flew West are:

Linden Jackson (vocals, guitar)
Jonah Bartels (drums, vocals)
David DiSalvo (lead guitar, vocals)
Dawson Frye (bass)

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