The reason that pop punk has always found a receptive audience is really, really simple: every generation wants to think it is nothing like the previous one. They need to believe that they're writing an all-new book; that no one has ever dealt with what they're dealing with, that no one's ever felt bored or helpless or shiftless, never felt left out, never been stuck and overlooked in the middle, never been brimming with energy and screaming for change but shuffling through another bullshit year with nothing to do. That would suck – being a teenager sucks and everyone who has ever been a teenager knows it; but not everyone can so neatly encapsulate that ennui and frustration in a song.
When they do lock that feeling into a song though, that's when a band knows they've got something. That's the reason why The Wonder Years know they're going to live forever when they howl, “I'm not sad anymore, I'm just tired of this place/and the homophobic bullshit that's somehow okay/because you didn't mean it that way/I can't take anymore of the scum in this place/the shitty dudes with tribal tattoos around me/lining up cheap beer and roofies for a party at their place” (from My Last Semester”); they've captured that feeling that launched thousands of gold-selling sentiments over the last fifty years.
Other than the time-honored annoyances that The Wonder Years present on The Upsides, what will hook listeners is how excited they are at the release of all the poison; through the album's twelve tracks, singer Dan Campbell, guitarists Matt Brasch and Casey Cavaliere, bassist Josh Martin and drummer Mike Kennedy almost glow white hot as they lament their senior year of high school, freshman year of college and the obligatory vows of poverty and sexual frustration that canvas over both. The only hope the band members find is in each other and conveying their experiences either as warnings to the kids a few years behind them or as a heartening example that they went through it too, and survived. That doesn't stop them from taking a few cheap shots at both “society” and themselves of course (check “All My Friends Are In Bar Bands,” “This Party Sucks,” “It's Never Sunny In South Philadelphia” or “Everything I Own Fits In This Backpack”), but there's a warmth and caring that exudes from each one that implies a vulnerability – even when they're being snide. Those are the moments in which a listener can easily fall in love with them.
So, yeah, you've heard stuff like that which The Wonder Years are peddling before, but at least they do it well on The Upsides. This is the kind of album that a kid will hold up as a banner all the way through high school – just like kids have done repeatedly with other defining albums in decades passed. Is that a horrible thing? Certainly not – there has to be another “Longview” or “I'm Just A Kid” or “1969” or “I'm Eighteen” or “Flagpole Sitta” or “Smells Like Teen Spirit” or “We're Not Gonna Take It” that comes out every couple of years and The Wonder Years have taken all the leg work out of it for listeners in 2010 – they've got twelve anthems like that all locked into The Upsides.
Artist:
www.myspace.com/thewonderyears
Album:
The Upsides is out now. Buy it here on Amazon .
