Genre: Pop/Rock
Members: Matt Thiessen (vocals, guitars, piano), Matt Hoopes (guitars, vocals), Jon Schneck (guitars, banjo, bells, vocals), John Warne (bass, vocals), Dave Douglas (dums, vocals)
For fans of: Green Day, MxPx, The All-American Rejects, Jimmy Eat World, Simple Plan
Label: Gotee/Capitol records

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With Five Score And Seven Years Ago—Relient K's fifth album in seven years and the follow up to 2004's mmhmm, the band's third consecutive Gold album—some are bound to ask, has the pop-punk band, ahem, matured a bit? Well, yes—sort of. While the new album isn't chockfull of their characteristic puns and concludes with an 11-minute, 115-track tour de force entitled "Deathbed," rest assured, Relient K has not lost its quirky sense of humor.

The first track, the a cappella vignette "Plead the Fifth," for instance, is written from the viewpoint of an 19th century man with an outlandish conspiracy theory about Lincoln's death and it features lead vocalist/guitarist/pianist Matt Thiessen using his mouth to simulate each instrument of a drum kit. "Crayons Can Melt On Us For All I Care," which takes longer to say than to play, is a classic Relient K goofball aside. And while the epic "Deathbed," which includes Switchfoot's Jon Foreman on guest vocals, has a somber setting as its title implies, the masterfully woven tale of a man's life and death brims with witty observations and aural ironies.

"I really love to not be serious all the time, even when I am being serious," says Thiessen, who likens the band's growth on Five Score And Seven Years Ago to Laffy Taffy. "It's the same flavor but we try to stretch it a little bit. It's still melodic, it's still rock 'n' roll, there are still a lot of dynamics. But at the same time, we're trying to write a bit differently, lyrically."

Indeed, the album is a departure for Relient K. In addition to the two story-songs that bookend the album, there are some love songs—and they're happy ones. "I always write about what I'm going through and I can't avoid the fact that I'm just really happy and there are some good things going on," says Thiessen.

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