Legendary Wings: Making Paper Roses

Legendary Wings sound like a young band, despite all of the members having made the rounds in other local bands before forming this one. Part of that is probably the fact that they made an album on their own dime, they mailed it unsolicited to Dirtnap Records, and Dirtnap decided to release it as-is. This is a raw rock record that straddles the nebulous line between pop-punk and power-pop, and its combination of catchiness and lack of polish brings to mind bands like early Green Day, mid-period Hüsker Dü and pretty much the entirety of Screeching Weasel’s career. Another thing that makes them sound young: they still include soundbites from their favorite stuff in between the songs. Bits I recognized include lines from mid-90s movies Billy Madison, BASEketball and The Cable Guy, which pegs the band members as being older than they sound. Despite being raw, though, Making Paper Roses is a very solid album. Most of these songs clock in at less than three minutes, and while the band has a definite sound, the songwriting is fairly diverse, so the songs are distinct from each other. At 16 tracks, the album is a bit overstuffed, but it’s quite clear why Dirtnap decided to go ahead and release it. Legendary Wings (named after an old, now-obscure Nintendo video game) have a bright future ahead of them if this album is any indication.