- Gabriele Filippi
- Oct 2019
- 2 min
- 537 views
Merit Maker is a (technically solo) music project launched in 2017 by Joe Stanton, which recently released its debut album Judgment Calls.
Joe has put all his creativity into this release, having written the structure of the songs, the bass lines, and the lyrics. Later, through a collaboration with other musicians for the guitar and drum sections, he put the songs together in full.
Judgment Calls is a true musical journey that makes us retrace the path that Merit Maker has walked to realize this debut album. Recorded in several studios over a period of several months before being mixed and mastered, Judgment Calls gives us all the energy and freshness of the creative sparkle that Merit Maker showed off during the recording process.
The music of Merit Maker emerges from the more classic punk rock genre, to run wild in all its fervor and soar in creative fusions. The delivery that comes with Judgment Calls is characterized by an overall sound that blends elements of a myriad of styles and sub-genres related to its punk roots, such as pop-punk, skate-punk, hardcore punk, post-punk, post-hardcore, alternative, and emo.
The sound of Judgment Calls presents many easy-to-relate-to elements, as the music of Merit Maker is influenced by a variety of bands and well-known artists in the punk rock scene of the 90s and early 00s, such as The Offspring, Blink 182, and Green Day, just to name a few.
The theme of the entire album is developed around a message of positivity, which spurs us to overcome the inevitable obstacles and struggles that life presents us with and to make good and judicious choices along the way. Hence the title Judgment Calls. It’s an album that comes from a mature awareness. 
- .: Nova MUSIC blog // October 2019