CDs Revisited: The Hextalls - 'Play With Heart'

I sure own a lot of pop punk albums.

I got this one as a part of a sale that The Hextalls were having right around the time of this album's release: four of their studio albums on CD and a shirt. I was never a huge fan of them, but it seemed like a pretty good deal for a band that I kind of liked.

The Hextalls are a weird band for me to try to dissect. Bands like this don't seem to be writing music for the prestige or wide-spread mainstream recognition. They're writing music for fun- which can still be picked apart by critics but it doesn't feel right to me to take a critical look at songs like "Welcome to Pooville" or "I Bought You a Singing Toilet" under the same lens that I might use for a song like The Gaslight Anthem's "Get Hurt" or something like "Hands Down" by Dashboard Confessional. When it comes to pop punk bands that write these jokey kinds of songs, it feels like they really just need to write fun songs that can hold up after a few years. [Side note: I kind of feel the same way about blink-182 and The Queers, but both of those bands have also written songs that have more serious overtones, or at the least, less joking tones, which kind of elevates them (for the lack of a better term) to a level where they can be critically observed]

Play With Heart is probably my favorite album of theirs. It's no different from most of their other albums, but I think they tone down most of the profanity on this one. It's no less immature (again, there are songs on here called "Welcome to Pooville" and "I Bought You a Singing Toilet"), but there are less lyrics about accidentally cutting your testicles or peeing on an ex's toothbrush. "Ouch, My Childhood" is one of my favorite songs about how remakes, reboots, sequels, and prequels are terrible, and "Danny Glover vs. The World" is the nicest tribute to Danny Glover that Danny Glover will probably never hear. "Let's Build Robots" is about Avril Lavigne and Chad Kroeger's marriage, but also about an army of robot Chad Kroegers. It's a fun record. I even really like the Pat Benatar cover at the end of the album (it's "We Belong," in case you were wondering).

The digital version of the album came with a bonus commentary track featuring, well, a track-by-track commentary of the album. It's worth checking out if you're a fan of the music, though unlike the rest of the album (and much like any commentary track) it doesn't have a whole lot of replay value. I did learn that "Welcome to Pooville" is about Animal Crossing because of this track though, so that's a nice little bit of trivia.

Final verdict: Don't hate. I even still wear the shirt from time to time.

You can stream it below via Spotify, or check it out on Amazon.