CD of the Day: ‘Your Favorite Weapon,’ Brand New (2001)

Brand New’s debut is one of my favorite pop/punk albums of the decade. They were Fall Out Boy before Fall Out Boy even existed, and if they’d stuck to this formula, who knows what kind of success they might have had.

Instead, the band moved away from the straightforward, uptempo, I’ve-just-been-dumped, post-high school material of “Your Favorite Weapon.” Ultimately, that was a good artistic choice (see 2006’s “The Devil and God Are Waging Inside Me”), but future efforts don’t diminish what an excellent record this is, even if it doesn’t sound like anything they’ve done since. Everything about “Your Favorite Weapon” is big: big chords, big choruses, and big drums, all evoking outsized predecessors like Green Day and Weezer. And it features more melodic variety than is standard for the genre; you can actually tell the difference between these tracks.

“Your Favorite Weapon” never hits a weak patch. If you’re a fan of this brand of punk, you owe it to yourself to hear this CD.

Grade: A-

Favorite Track: “Mix Tape”

Least Favorite Track: “The No Seatbelt Song”