Review: Against Me! – Transgender Dysphoria Blues

Drew Beringer Jan 23, 2014

Transgender Dysphoria Blues is the record Laura Jane Grace has been screaming to get out for many years. Two May’s ago, the Against Me! front woman revealed her lifelong struggle with gender dysphoria and came out as a transgender woman. After a flurry of press and support followed by a desolate and bleak recording process that almost killed the band rises an album that shuts out all the white noise and delivers the best Against Me! album ever. Laura Jane Grace has a lot to get off her chest, so it’ll be best if you give one of the most essential punk records of our era your full and undivided attention.

Gregory Robson Jan 22, 2014

Chalk this one up to pretense.

The highly anticipated sophomore follow-up to Young the Giant’s juggernaut self-titled debut is a mixed bag of awkwardness, superfluous breathiness and more brain-wracking lyrics. Plenty might find album opener “Slow Dive,” gorgeous and inviting but really it’s a waste of 40 seconds that serves no purpose. Ditto for the punchy “Anagram,” which has a cheery chorus and a sun-drenched vibe but does very little on repeat listens. Sure, there’s moments of prettiness and the song does have its share of pleasant moments but it lingers for far too long and is only rescued by Sameer Gadhia’s otherworldly vocals. First single “It’s About Time” is even more confused as it seems to stretch the band into a genre they’re not well suited for. Equal parts garage-pop and avant-garde indie, it sounds way too much like a band trying too hard.

Craig Manning Jan 20, 2014

It’s a weird thing about being a music “critic”: you’re consistently comparing the songs and albums you hear to other icons and indices from your own listening experience and trying to decipher individual influences within an artist’s sound, but in most cases, you have no real idea whether those influences were there at all or whether the similarities you noticed were intentional. Instead, you’re left driving blind, projecting your own musical history and preferences onto the work of someone you’ve never even met or spoken to, let alone traded records with. But that’s what makes it such a pleasure when someone you know unleashes a remarkable musical work. You get to hear the music they’ve been championing to you for years – the songs you’ve shared, the musical moments you’ve both remarked upon – reflected back at you in their own musical creations. In essence, you hear the person you have gotten to know encapsulated in the words and chords of the music they write, and in doing so, you get to know that person a little bit better.

Drew Beringer Jan 17, 2014

Revival my ass. Sure, there has been a handful of think pieces and reviews lately about the “reemergence” of emo from the type of music journalist who jumps from trend to trend (or hashtag to hashtag) but honestly any fan from the scene already knows that 1. emo never went away (or will go away – just check the AbsolutePunk.net homepage the last ten years) and 2. Florida’s You Blew It! have been cranking out emo-flavored pop-punk jams over the past four-plus years, as the group’s latest album, Keep Doing What You’re Doing, expands on the band’s so-called “1999” sound.

Hell, it was only two years ago we jokingly gave this style of music the absurd moniker “twinkle daddies.” But You Blew It! has emerged from 2012’s Cap’n Jazz-influenced Grow Up, Dude and last winter’s split with Fake Problems louder and bolder with Keep Doing What You’re Doing. Produced by Emo Mayor Evan Weiss, YBI!’s knack for loud, dissonant power chords boom throughout the record without its essential fuzziness being compromised. In fact, the production is very reminiscent of Weiss’ 2011 release, Proper, a record that did a bang-up job of balancing its stripped-down, raw moments with the louder, more frenetic ones while remaining sonically pleasing. “Match & Tinder” is a callused, aggressive opener that twitches between the rough anguish of vocalist Tanner Jones’ rasp and the wistfulness of Andy Anaya’s frantic guitar work. The pop from Timothy Flynn’s relentless snare drum paces “Award of the Year Award”’s driving heaviness as an exasperated Jones yells, “Consider me a friend, but only in the past tense.”

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Review: Neck Deep – Wishful Thinking

Blake Solomon Jan 13, 2014

As a somewhat educated apprentice of pop-punk, one inevitably asks the question, “Shouldn’t you just meet some new friends?” Lots of the problems detailed in an album like Neck Deep’s debut Wishful Thinking could most likely be fixed by a simple change of scenery. Stop talking to girls in beanies and high heels! There’s nothing cute about a Grey Goose keychain! I don’t know, we were all young and some of us always will be. And it can certainly be excruciating to be constantly reminded over smashing drums and snotty vocals that the whole world is filled with garbage people. We take public transportation and wait in line at the grocery store; we don’t need reminding.

Zac Djamoos Dec 23, 2013

Each new The Republic of Wolves album seems to marginally overshadow the previous. Varuna expanded on the Brand New worshiping His Old Branches EP and their Cartographer EP was even better than Varuna. Enters No Matter How Narrow, here to claim the title of The Republic of Wolves’ masterpiece.

Whereas their previous three releases had been dark, brooding affairs, …Narrow is a bit lighter. This is apparent first even from the album cover – this one is white and gold and blue, while Varuna’s was brown and red and navy. But it’s the music that’s important. The choruses present are catchier than in the past, the guitar riffs are brighter than before, there’s less screaming present on this release. And when screaming is utilized, it’s done in a more sparing fashion, just to accentuate. A perfect example of this is the bridge of “Pioneers,” which finds only ten seconds of screaming for emphasis.

Craig Manning Nov 11, 2013

I’ve always had a relative soft spot for Avril Lavigne, not because her career is built from consistently solid albums (in fact, Lavigne’s discography is infamously spotty, marked by great pop singles and not much else), but because I always felt like she was unique in the landscape of pop music. It’s not just that she worked with Butch Walker on pretty much all of her best songs—though that certainly didn’t hurt—but rather that her sassy punk image and her loud, distinct personality always showed through in her songs. Lavigne was at her best on her second full-length—2004’s Under My Skin—where a dark pop style (on the Walker-penned “My Happy Ending”) and a rebellious tone (the other big single, “Don’t Tell Me,” which radiated a genuine girl power message that not many pop stars have been able to replicate since)—set her apart from the other pop music on the radio at the time. Other than Pink (who, big surprise, also utilized Walker as her go-to co-writer and producer), no other female pop starlet of the early 2000s gave off the same in-control confidence. Here was a pop singer/songwriter who was going to make the music that she wanted to and do it her own way, damn anyone—especially the label—who tried to tell her otherwise.

Craig Manning Nov 11, 2013

Earlier this year, when the AP.net staff ranked its collective favorite albums from the first half of 2013, the list was populated largely by critical favorites from the year’s first six months (The National, Kanye West, Vampire Weekend, Deafheaven, and Justin Timberlake, to name a few), as well as by a few scene staples like Fall Out Boy and Paramore. But amidst the big names and the usual suspects, there was a record by a country music singer/songwriter named Jason Isbell, somehow managing to sneak into the list at number eight.

Almost five months later, as the year winds down and the time for album-of-the-year lists draws near, I find myself returning to that record—called Southeastern—more than virtually anything released this year. More than once, I’ve woken up at night with this album’s soaring melodies, haunting lyrics, sparse instrumentation, and Isbell’s weather-worn tenor ringing in my mind. The album’s best song, an acoustic heartbreaker called “Elephant” keeps randomly punctuating my dreams for no apparent reason other than it’s a damn fantastic piece of songwriting. And I repeatedly find myself playing the strains of the mission-statement opening, “Cover Me Up,” whenever I pick up my acoustic guitar between busy freelance writing assignments.

AbsolutePunk Oct 29, 2013

Many bands who release an album after a long hiatus inevitably disappoint. Expectations are too high, inspiration isn’t what it once was, and momentum is lost. Partycrasher is a boot to the face of every flat late-career release that preceded this one. “Why’d I take so long to break these chains around me?” The band soon answers the opening self-imposed question with an admission in “Boat Builders”: “I admit I’ve been bored, I’ve been lazy.” The next 10 tracks serve as more than an adequate apology, as A Wilhelm Scream has stuck yet another jaw-dropping middle finger to the competition.

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Review: Katy Perry – Prism

Craig Manning Oct 28, 2013

The first time I heard “Roar,” the lead-off single and opening track from Prism, Katy Perry’s fourth full-length record—as well as Perry’s eighth number one hit—I thought it was a solid pop song. It had a catchy melody, a huge, arena-rock-esque hook, generic lyrics, and just about everything else you would expect from the new Katy Perry single. It was neither a great song nor a terrible one, and after coming to loathe pretty much every radio hit from both 2008’s breakthrough, One of the Boys and 2010’s world-conquering juggernaut,Teenage Dream, “solid pop song” was just about a home run for Perry in my book.

Then I started paying a bit more attention.

Blake Solomon Oct 20, 2013

Just short of admitting all of my neuroses to a bunch of strangers, it seems pertinent to start a review of Intersections with the beguilingly cliche statement that you’ll like this if you often find yourself alone. Evan Weiss has become known for his sheer proliferation of music, a sort-of workman in the emo age. Which is fine and true, but what you really get on a stellar album like Intersections is a painting of a person forced from the safehaven of their mind. It’s music with all of the intricate guitar, soft singing and autumn-hued loneliness we love about Into It. Over It., but these one-on-one conversations (or more often one-on-none) carry more weight. Mr. Weiss is far from talking to himself these days, and as a mouthpiece for those of us tripping through our twenties, he’s someone we need to hear.

Drew Beringer Oct 8, 2013

I’m not really into pop-rock music anymore. That might be a shock to the people who know me/follow me on Twitter, but it’s true – the oversaturation of the genre has really turned me off to the entire sound. Despite all of my preconceived notions about this style of music, Mayday Parade always seem to write an album that needles its way into my heart. I hate using the term “guilty pleasure,” so I’m not going to use here, especially on a band that just wrote 12 huge tracks on its latest release, Monsters In The Closet – an album built for arenas.

Now, I’m not saying the band has reinvented the wheel or anything – rather they’ve continued to refine and perfect the pop-rock sound so many fans fell in love with six years on A Lesson In Romantics. Vocalist Derek Sanders is still one of the most emphatic and charismatic front men today and he totally owns each of Monsters’ twelve tracks. “Ghosts” kicks off Monsters with Sanders singing a cappella (with the band harmonizing behind him) before kicking it into high gear. Drummer Jake Bundrick punctures through the dueling guitar riffs of Brooks Betts and Alex Garcia while Sanders carries the song’s massive hook. And honestly, nearly every song has a monstrous hook. “Girls” and “Repent and Repeat” go from zero to sixty in an instant (displaying the band’s pop-punk chops), while “Last Night For A Table Of Two” and “The Torment of Existence Weighed Against The Horror Of Nonbeing” (awesome Calvin and Hobbes reference by the way) showcase the continuous growth in the band’s songwriting (Betts and Garcia have really outdone themselves on Monsters).

Ryan Gardner Oct 8, 2013

If there’s anything to be said about Panic! At The Disco it’s that they aren’t afraid to try new things. Each of their three records up to this point have sounded drastically different. But you know what, they probably don’t really care which one you like more or why. With that in mind, the band’s fourth record, the long-titled Too Weird To Live, Too Rare To Die, takes yet another step away from previous material.

Demographically, this record sort of sounds like the band started down a similar path of Vices and Virtues before quickly veering down a more dance/dubstep inspired path (Side note: this is where I apologize if I am an idiot – I do not listen to dubstep, so I am only speculating that some of the instrumentation is dubstep-influenced). The explanation for this path reasoning comes very early with singles “This Is Gospel” and “Miss Jackson.” Both of these tracks basically take the pop sensibilities of Vices – I’m looking at tracks like “Memories” and “Ready To Go” – and pick up where they left off. “Whoa-oh-ohs,” repetition, and bombastic choruses start this record off on a note of addictive pop tunes.

AbsolutePunk Oct 7, 2013

The law is a complicated thing, but listening to music is not. Listening to music is easy. So even though you might not be interested in learning the ins and outs of A Day to Remember’s ongoing lawsuit with (former?) label Victory Records, you can instead digest something much more straightforward: The band’s new album, Common Courtesy. And in the face of two years of drama surrounding the release of this record, it seems like an important time to remind the Internet that years down the road, people won’t remember that a band was once in a lawsuit with its label – but the record, and these songs, will be remembered. The record lasts forever.

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Review: Justin Timberlake – The 20/20 Experience (2 of 2)

Craig Manning Oct 1, 2013

Making a double album is a risky proposition for any artist. Plenty of the greats, from Bruce Springsteen to the Beatles to the Smashing Pumpkins, have stumbled into the pitfalls of self-indulgence and/or plentiful filler material en route to creating their own double albums, and those records are considered the classics of the medium. Imagine what a complete double album disaster could sound like. Expansive and interconnected musical projects hardly become easier when you break them up into separate releases and space them out across several months (just ask Green Day), and it all becomes a little bit trickier when you have nearly seven years of built-up anticipation waiting on the receiving end of your return.

Such was the perfect storm of intensity waiting for Justin Timberlake when he made his comeback earlier this year with the first part of The 20/20 Experience. Timberlake’s answer to handling the “double album” pressure was, unsurprisingly, to play it cool and not tell anyone he was actually making a double album: The 20/20 Experience 2 of 2 wasn’t even announced until well after the first part had scored a just-shy-of-a-million-copies first week of sales. Timberlake also subverted expectations with the music, inflating his song lengths to the five, six, or seven minute range (if not more), meaning that his two 2013 albums have ended up with a collective running time of 144 minutes, enough music for three or four records. Needless to say, the 2013 version of Justin Timberlake has been a guy with a lot of songs to share and plenty of surprises up his sleeve.

Review: Against Me! – Transgender Dysphoria Blues

Review: Young the Giant – Mind Over Matter

Review: Hailey, It Happens – Under the Brilliant Lights

Review: You Blew It! – Keep Doing What You’re Doing

Review: Neck Deep – Wishful Thinking

Review: The Republic of Wolves – No Matter How Narrow

Review: Avril Lavigne – Avril Lavigne

Review: Jason Isbell – Southeastern

Review: A Wilhelm Scream – Partycrasher

Review: Katy Perry – Prism

Review: Into It. Over It. – Intersections

Review: Mayday Parade – Monsters In The Closet

Review: Panic! at The Disco – Too Weird To Live, Too Rare To Die!

Review: A Day to Remember – Common Courtesy

Review: Justin Timberlake – The 20/20 Experience (2 of 2)