Dustin's Best of 2017, #20: Robot Bachelor - 'The Third House Boat Abum'

I guess it's a good as of a time as any to start counting down my favorite releases of 2017.

To start off my list, I've got Robot Bachelor's debut album, The Third House Boat Album. The title is pretty literal, as this easily could have been released under the House Boat name and it would have passed as the follow up to House Boat's sophomore album (released way back in 2012), The Thorns of Life, despite only have one member of House Boat in its line up. It's so close to being a House Boat album that for awhile Spotify had it listed as by both Robot Bachelor and House Boat (at least I recall both artist names showing up under the album. I canceled my premium account in August and I rarely use the free version outside of embedding album streams).

Anyway, as far as modern pop punk goes, Robot Bachelor does it right. The vocals are snotty, the lyrics are self-deprecating, and the melodies are catchy as hell. There's not a single song on here that cracks 2 and a half minutes, which is just the way that pop punk should be. While it's likely that Grath Madden (of both House Boat and The Steinways fame) composed most of the songs here, it's clear that the other members (Noelle from Rational Anthem on bass, and Luke from The Copyrights and Hospital Job on drums) had a hand in song-writing here and there. Particularly "When You Give Up," which recalls the best parts of Luke's writing with Hospital Job and I wouldn't be surprised if his band ever records a version of the song on a future release.

Over the last few months, The Third House Boat Album has kind of fallen out of my regular rotation but not enough to be forgotten completely. That sounds like weird praise for an album I'm calling one of my favorites of the year, but that's just my justification for placing it at number 20.

Stream The Third House Boat Album via Spotify below or buy it on Bandcamp here.

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