Hit the Lights used to be the quintessential pop punk band. That’s even before the band’s first lead singer Colin Ross left the band. They lacked the polish to be commercially viable in that era with Ross at the helm, but when guitarist Nick Thompson took over vocals everything changed and everything was ramped up. The music got substantially better and because of that the attention that band got grew too. Because the attention to the band grew, they were able to get a deal with Universal to make an album.
Here’s where things get weird. Tons of money was invested in the band on co-writes. They got to write with Ryan Key from Yellowcard, Andrew McMahon of Jack’s Mannequin and a few other high-profile writers. But for whatever reason, the album didn’t get released with Universal and the band went packing and went through a giant ordeal to release their album. They found a home with Razor & Tie and Invicta is the result of a lot of turmoil the band went through.
What’s cool about Invicta is that for all the writers that Hit the Lights went through to make this record, only one of those co-writes made it to the record- a track the band wrote with Ryan Key of Yellowcard. The band wrote the rest of these songs themselves. What makes this album incredible is how diverse the songs are. Out of everything that’s here there are only a few songs that sound alike; most of the material is different from track to track. The common thread of rock that’s slightly influenced by pop punk is on all of the tracks, it’s just every track sounds different and takes you to a different place. Not all the places that it takes you are great, but most of them are and it makes the album an awesome experience.
Hit the Lights’ latest album is easily the best that the band has put out. As much as I liked Skip School, Start Fights it was a bit of a guilty pleasure. There is no guilt in liking Invicta, it’s a great record. Not all of the songs hit the mark, but the album in its entirety definitely does.