Almost forgotten along the way: H2O

I guess everyone experienced something like this at least once. There is this band everybody is talking about and all your friends encourage you to buy the record this band has put out recently. You then go and get it, you like it, but somehow it just doesn't stick with you. You bury it somewhere deep in you collection and after some time you start to forget about it. The band gets bigger, but because of the first impression you had of that band, you don't really bother to even listen in to their new records. The band plays shows every now and then in your hometown, but you don't bother to show up there because of the first impression you had years ago. And thenm, after years of ignorance you finally see the light because you gave their latest record a chance.
See, this is what happened to me and H2O, a band I always filed under the category of a rather boring and average attempt to mix punkrock with the attitude of New York Hardcore. I know that a friend of mine made a tape recording of their first 7" for me and that was some time in the middle of the 1990s. The sound was okay but I didn't really see why the band got so much attention. It was average punkrock and I assumed that people only liked it because the band was from New York and was in some way connected to the big names of the NYHC scene. In addition their band name sounded a little to preachy to me, a guy who was preferring beer to water at that time. It was all too stereotypical and cliché. So I never really bothered to go and see them play live, it was too expensive anyway as that was the time when the bands started to become too big for the small clubs and moved into bigger venues which brought along higher prices for the tickets. To cut it short, I never bought a record and I never went to a show by H2O.
And now after more than 10 years I got my hands on their latest record "Nothing To Prove" and I have to admit that I am impressed. Although I still remember the voice and even though the music sounds familiar this is something I never imagined. This record got me right from the start. Great music, pumping beats, there's atmosphere in every song. Party tunes all the way. And what makes this even more enjoyable is the guests on the recording. Sick Of It All's Lou Koller and Alkaline Trio's Matt Skiba are the voices I recognized right away. This record truly proves that this band has nothing to prove. To noone, not even to me. I missed out on something over a long period of time and I happily admit my mistake.