I wasn’t exactly in awe of Ex Friends’ previous release – the 5-song EP “No Wonder We Prefer The Dark” – which could’ve been left in the dark as well as far as I was concerned. Now, I don’t know if it’s something I ate, drank or smoked but I’m having a good time listening to “Rules For Making Up Words”, the band’s first full-length.

14 Songs get the shit played out of them in 27 minutes and all of them come with gruff vocals courtesy of Joel Tannenbaum (yeah, the guy whose vocals I called grating on the EP), thumping bass lines and some nicely textured guitars. Simple? Yes. Effective? Yes. And catchy. Big kudos to bassist Audrey Crash who handles a fair share of the vocals as well and does so in most excellent fashion. She even takes the lead on “Fight Like A Girl” and “Archaeologists Of The Future”, two of the standout songs on what is a solid gritty pop-punk album.