Want to hear an album that sounds perfect for provoking a bunch of sweaty guys with buzzcuts and tattoos to start flailing around wildly and jumping on each other? Then do yourself a favor and track down H2O’s 2008 release, Nothing to Prove. Upon hearing the group’s first new set of tunes in seven years (their previous album, Go, dropped in 2001), it turns out that H2O still follow the same game plan as before — shouted-yet-melodic vocals and bash-and-wail songs that simply ooze with adrenaline or rocket fuel (take your pick). H2O are veterans of the Warped Tour, and the majority of the tunes on Nothing to Prove are absolutely custom-made for the sunburned skater crowds that congregate at the festival each year. Picture the excitement of lighting a firecracker and running away before it blows up your neighbor’s mailbox, and you may get the same feeling listening to such barely containable punk-pop ditties as the album-opening “1995,” as well as the title track, “A Thin Line,” and “Fairweather Friend.” A most welcome return for H2O, Nothing to Prove shows that the extended hiatus from the recording studio hasn’t dulled their roar in the slightest. – Greg Prato
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