One would think that a mixture of jumpy ska-punk and intense post-hardcore wouldn't work, but
Folly's full-length debut is a surprisingly cohesive and solid album. It helps that the band has developed this blend organically over the years: after starting in the late '90s as a standard-issue ska-punk band in the general third wave style, the band has dropped the horns but kept the rhythms (think of how
Ted Leo & the Pharmacists work ska and R&B into some of their songs) even as guitarists Agim Colaku and Geoff Towle introduce post-hardcore repetitive riffs into the tunes. Against this unorthodox but appealing mashup, singer Jon Tummillo occasionally comes off merely as a distraction; cutesily nonsensical song titles like "I've Been Running for Miles, Davis" and "Please Don't Shoot the Piano Player, He's Doing the Best He Can" and otherwise unmemorable emo-shaded lyrics don't help his case. Quirky but exciting in a way that many straight ska-punk or post-hardcore albums aren't,
Insanity Later is at the very least an interesting stylistic experiment. ~ Stewart Mason