City Lights is a pop punk outfit out of Columbus, Ohio that make their debut on InVogue Records with In It To Win It. The album is a nod to the lives of the youth hitting on such subject matter as relationship issues, going after your dreams, and the usual stuff that you might find from a pop punk outfit looking to capture the attention of the 13 to 20 crowd. The album runs a fulfilling thirty three minutes and forty eight seconds long from intro to an acoustic version of track eight, Lawnmower.

My first impression of City Lights was that their sound was something that I’d heard many times before. The bands style doesn’t do much to differentiate itself from its peers. Lead singer Osh!e B!char sounds like your average singer for a pop punk outfit such as New Found Glory, Blink 182, or Simple Plan. Music-wise the band is proficient in executing tight beats and displaying a knowledgeable acuity when it comes to playing their instruments. Again, its really nothing I haven’t heard before but the delivery of the messages on the album are pretty well delivered. In a world of mostly negativity City Lights offers up a good balance between positive and negative messages, leaning more towards the positive. When you have the clout use it, so to speak, and City Lights does a commendable job offering up sound advice to their listeners about following their dreams and how to avoid some of the pitfalls along the way as well as a hefty dose of insight when it comes to the feelings that arise from a broken relationship and how to go about moving on without doing much damage to your young psyche. In the end I did enjoy the album and I do feel like the band has the potential to excel from just the cookie cutter style they have going on now. If not maybe they might be around for awhile but, as we all know from their predecessors, the people want something more then what they can already get from similar bands and if they don’t get it…well, good bye foot in the door. As always final judgment is yours. Enjoy.