Fitness

I randomly signed up to review this second EP from Fitness even though I had never heard of them before. Spoiler alert: I’m glad I did. Hailing from Chicago, Fitness has been making a name for themselves and I was late on the bandwagon. Puppet Show utilizes some fantastic puns as song titles, which I immensely appreciate. How can you possibly go wrong with song titles such as “Sin Bad,” “Pauly’s Shore,” and “Roseanne’s Bar”? Answer: You can’t.

Two dueling yet harmonic guitars, a fast bass line, punked up drums, and gruelingly, gritty vocals make up this six song wonder. For a band that self-describes themselves as rarely doing push-ups, they’ve got stamina. The EP starts out with “Road Lizard,” which perfectly sets the tone. The theme of the EP is obviously “great grungy punk that makes you want to dance around with some cheap beer.” Fitness manages to blend fun, poppy guitar riffs with melodies that encourage head-banging. The mix of scratchy, yelling vocals with occasional melodic singing keeps you on your toes, and most importantly, listening.

Most of the six songs are right around the two minute mark, except for “Firebird” which hits exactly three minutes. Ironically, this is my least favorite song of the six. The guitar riffs sound more metal-influenced and it just doesn’t quite mesh with the other five songs. That said, it’s still pretty good.

Although I can’t make out all of the lyrics, the ones I can are fun to sing along to. Overall, I give this EP four out of five dumbbells, and I leave with just one question for Fitness. Will you guys please play Seattle soon?