Isn’t It Supposed To Be Fun!? asks the title of Farewell’s début album. Well, it depends what you’re asking about, I guess. Making a punk rock album should certainly be fun; I expect you’re doing something wrong if it’s not.
Listening to a punk rock album should be fun as well. The problem here being that “fun” has a shelf life, and Farewell’s particular brand is teetering on the edge of its best-before date on the day it gets released.
That’s not Farewell’s fault, to be fair. Like probably thousands of other bands, they’re making the music they care about, writing from their hearts and playing with all the conviction they can muster. But also like those thousands of other bands, they went through their teens listening to Blink-182 and Sum 41, and they’ve picked up the same broad base of influences as their peers.
The end result being that Isn’t It Supposed To Be Fun!? sounds like a hundred other albums already on the market. Pop-punk isn’t punk any more. It’s just pop.
Pop isn’t a sin, of course – and Farewell make a fine job of it on what is undeniably a nicely produced and polished album. But it’s just soooooo vanilla.
From the everyman accent of singer Marshall Davis, through the warm and mild distortion of the guitars and the chirpy synthesizer preset, right up to the diet-ska song: it’s MTV/Warped Tour business as usual.
Every hook, every harmonised vocal line, every little stop-and-drop from the rhythm section, every heartfelt refrain about a confusing teenage relationship gone wrong … you’ve heard them all before. What would have been catchy and memorable five years ago now slides off your ears like Chuck Taylors on wet manhole covers.
Let me be clear: Farewell aren’t a bad band, and they make no claims to be anything other than a pop act. And best of luck to them – I’m not the sort of person who wants the whole world to listen to the same music as me.
But I can’t help but feel Farewell will end up feeling rather like that guy who turns up to the all-night house-party at 4 a.m., and then wonders why everyone starts leaving or going to bed. It’s not his fault; it’s just that everyone’s had enough already.
Farewell can be excused for missing the bus - good bands play what they love, and that’s the way it should be. However, I’d be fascinated to hear the excuse from the once cutting-edge Epitaph Records for releasing Isn’t It Supposed To Be Fun!? - an album so mainstream that it makes Fallout Boy sound edgy.
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Posted in Music reviews |
Tags: Farewell, Isn't It Supposed To Be Fun!?, pop, pop-punk
