THE BRIGGS - BACK TO HIGHER GROUND published October 25, 2006, The Owl Mag

Sometimes you hear a record and think how perfect it would be as a high school movie soundtrack. This is really one of those albums. The brand of punk rock that The Briggs deliver with Back to Higher Ground is, among other things, peppy. It's clean and simple: all neutral qualities depending on your taste. On the upside is Joey LaRocca's vocals successfully managing to sound mature, not too guttural and aged like so many past-prime punk singers.

Basically, a band like this will remind you of other bands like Rancid and then... make you want to go listen to them again. The sound is appetizing yet in the end unsatisfying, lacking the added power boost that has made other punk bands transcend from genre typical to stylistic. From the surface it appears that everything is there: right tone, right singer, even the classic group-sung choruses and power cords. But something is missing, and if this band finds it they could go far.