Motion City Soundtrack

The members of Motion City Soundtrack are masters of catchy, sing-along pop-punk punctuated by organ hooks and references to their favorite TV shows. For its fourth album, My Dinosaur Life, MCS once again teamed up with Blink-182’s Mark Hoppus in the studio, this time tempering the quirk with a harder edge inspired by the band’s angry emo forefathers. “Disappear” sets an urgent tone with anxious lyrics about some ambiguous crisis and a video that has a vacationing family terrorized by an equally ambiguous monster. It’s not all angst, though; in a wacky subsequent video for “Her Words Destroyed My Planet,” the guys bully kids at a science fair and name-drop Veronica Mars. The band’s new record, Go, just hit stores and, unfortunately, doesn’t feature any Kristen Bell cameos.

Updated 06/27/2012