Source: Album Artwork
Pop-punk is almost like a rite of passage, the genre that seems like the be all end all during your early teenage years. Unfortunately for many, passion for pop-punk is one that slowly fades as you grow older. Not for New Found Glory though, who at twenty years later show no signs of slowing down. Even fifteen years after the release of the seminal ‘My Friends Over You’, the band are capturing a new generation of fans with each album cycle and that’s exactly what they’re set to do with album number nine: Makes Me Sick.
New Found Glory have always been true to everything that pop-punk encompasses, churning out easy to listen to tracks with upbeat melodies and tongue in cheek lyrics that are always a good time to sing along to. For the most part, it is that element of fun that they seem to so easily cling on to – while the ten tracks on the record are a mix bag, this is the one thing they have in common. We are eased in with ‘Your Jokes Aren’t Funny’ a classic NFG track two decades down the line, if there ever was one. Sharp tongued lyrics continue on with ‘Party On Apocalypse’, a critique on the “self-centred generation taking pictures”.
‘The Sound Of Two Voices’ is the perfect counterpart to the album artwork, sonically. A light bouncy melody infused with the feeling of summer, it even comes equipped with an echoed percussion rhythm. Wise cracks are put to the side for a second with ‘Short And Sweet’, a song dedicated to a girl Jordan Pundik is claiming is too good for him. The album comes to a close with ‘The Cheap Thrill’, which is somewhat comforting to see the band still write content to go hand-in-hand with teen angst “and everyone can tell that I’m the cheapest thrill, and I can barely stand myself.”
Makes Me Sick is fun to listen to, there’s no taking that away from New Found Glory but for the most part it just seems to lack depth. You can either find comfort in the fact that there is very little progression to be expected from the band, who have consistently been true to the genre, or it can leave much to be desired. This isn’t the most memorable album and doesn’t really stand out from any of their past material but at the end of the day, maybe I’m just no longer part of their target group anymore.
