Review: New Found Glory – Catalyst

Flash back to the year 2004 for a bit. Several pop-punk, emo and hardcore bands have been signed to major label deals, CDs are still selling in waves, and it’s an ultra-exciting time for this scene of music. New Found Glory came in riding a major high after their most successful record, Sticks and Stones, blanketed the pop-punk scene with great singles like “My Friends Over You” and “Head On Collision” getting some airplay on MTV’s popular Total Request Live (TRL). Enter Catalyst. The record was set up for success as well with a bulletproof lead single of “All Downhill From Here” that wasn’t going to do anything to dissuade longtime fans of NFG from liking the new material. Catalyst had a harder edge to it, starting with the hardcore-esque gang vocals of “Intro” that bled into the lead single, while the guitars just felt heavier in general throughout the LP. While this album had a mix of styles and sounds that were brought forth, and musically it’s a bit all over the place, it’s hard to not admit that this is still one of the band’s strongest albums to date.

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Amy Shark Talks (Almost) New Found Glory

Amy Shark

Amy Shark talked with Mary Varvaris of The Music, and dropped this little tidbit about almost touring in New Found Glory:

Another moment where Shark nearly lost her mind was when she nearly became the touring guitarist for the pop-punk band New Found Glory. Shark has contacts in the pop-punk scene, nabbing blink-182’s Mark Hoppus for her Love Monster track Psycho and developing friendships with other bands. Shark’s come a long way from the days of being a “sweaty little emo”.

The story goes: “I surprisingly talk to a lot of them [pop-punk bands] now. Like, I’ve spoken to Deryck [Whibley] from Sum 41 and I’ve spoken to New Found Glory. I nearly went on tour with New Found Glory, playing in their band,” Shark says. “That’s something I haven’t said out loud! But I had Australian Idol, and that was coming about the same time we were working out if I was going to do Idol or not.

“One of their guitarists [Chad Gilbert, who was receiving intense chemotherapy for a rare cancer called pheochromocytoma in February 2023] is not well, and I’m like, I know so many New Found Glory songs. They’re like, ‘Do you want to come and be in the band?’ And I was like, What a crazy idea, but I kind of like it! So, yeah, I nearly went on tour with them.”