Pop meets Punk meets Electro, with great results

For fans of: A Rocket To The Moon; All Time Low; Nevershoutnever; Hadouken!

Arthur Walwin exists in the untouched patch of grass where the fields of pop, punk and dance meet. While we praised his single ‘Hard To Love’ not too long ago, you’ve got to wonder how far Walwin can go within that genre blend before it begins to either become repetitive or just too awkward.

Luckily, if that point is ever going to be reached, it doesn’t happen on debut album ‘Sleepless’. Through 11 tracks of intense energy and catchy vocal melodies, Walwin succeeds in showing that his style of music is – arguably – the future for pop-punk music. It’s been done in forms before, but ‘Sleepless’ has a more grown up feel to the clean cut electropunk sound.

As a result, his songs have a suave sophistication to them. Opener ‘White Wine’ is intensely pop-punk at its heart, wrapped in a fuzz of electronic sounds but still managing to sound polished, refined and highly developed. Obviously there are exceptions, and ‘This Feels Like Summer’, ‘Sweet’ and ‘Chance’ don’t have the same type of refinement. These are moments of carefree relief, sounding less serious and more fun than the rest.

There’s still a question of where Walwin’s sound will go next, but for now we’re perfectly happy to be here with him. ‘Sleepless’ sounds like a great place for mid-00’s pop-punk/emo to have reached, which almost redeems the genre for some of its releases.

Almost. ‘Sleepless’ isn’t quite at the level to erase the mistakes of pop-punk past. But there’s always next time for Walwin to do this.