What’s a boy to do when his pop-rock bands keep coming off the rails just as success starts to draw near? For Tom DeGrazia, late of both an early incarnation of We Are The In Crowd and The Best Week Ever, the answer was clear: start a Risecore project so compelling that Rise themselves would have to sign it! Poughkeepsie, NY’s That’s Outrageous! are the latest in a litany of bands to crash together synthy, digital pop and metal-tinged hardcore, and while they’re not exactly redefining the genre, DeGrazia’s knack for crafting memorable melodic parts and earworm choruses sets the band’s debut, Teenage Scream, a step ahead of most of its peers.

The band’s duel vocal attack—DeGrazia on clean vocals, Doriano Magliano doing the heavy lifting—is as solid a combo as the genre has produced to date. DeGrazia has range and doesn’t drown in heavy Auto-Tune; Magliano’s death-rattles have both depth and heft. At their best, like on opening salvo “Headshot At The Ballet Recital” or the title track, the two tear their own trenches but cross paths often; their angel/devil interplay is magnetic. (A warning though: their lyrics truck pretty heavily in juvenile misogyny at times; these are Angry Young Men and they’re not about to let anyone forget it). DeGrazia’s melodic parts are superbly crafted; the refrain of “Re:How I Killed My Girlfriend,” stripped of its leaden instrumentation, could have been a great emo-pop chorus. And the handful of outright pop tracks, like somber album-closer “What Happens In Azeroth, Stays In Azeroth,” are as good as anything else here. Meanwhile, Teenage Scream’s heavier parts would make for more-than-passable metalcore on their own.

The rest of the band plays it as straightforwardly as possible: lots of palm-muted chugging, drummer Max Wrye pounding heavy on the off beat, with the synths generally taking the lead in the more poppy sections. Eventually, the lack of anything resembling a complex guitar solo over the course of the entire album becomes so pronounced that you have to wonder if these guys are even capable of playing their instruments at more than a rudimentary level. (The one clear exception is the digital programming; tracks like “Is It 2012 Yet?” and “Star69” are gloriously glitchy, a sonic playground of ping-ponging sputters and warbles that breath life into what might otherwise be a rather one-note affair). Sometimes, that simplicity plays in their favor—the album’s heaviest track, “The New York Chainsaw Massacre,” finds Magliano shredding his throat over a massively sludgy breakdown so dense and chunky that you can practically feel it crushing the air from your chest. Other times, it leaves things a little underbaked. 

No matter. That’s Outrageous! may lack the technical chops of some of their contemporaries, but they’ve got a decided edge in the memorable hooks department, and that’s enough to make them stand out in the crowded field. Teenage Scream isn’t going to start a musical revolution, but as entertaining trifles go, this one’s pretty darn tasty. 

★★★.5/★★★★★

*This review was composed by Jesse Richman