Pop-punk's Last Hope

Pop-punk used to mean something. Long before the neon-colored, flat-ironed, hyper-image-conscious bands ruled, bands like The Starting Line, Midtown and New Found Glory crafted tracks with soaring choruses about girls and the road, perfect for the summer. Though a few bands (early Fall Out Boy) have recaptured those sentiments, hopefully All Time Low’s “Nothing Personal” will make pop-punk real again.

Filled with hook after hook, “Nothing Personal” is the quintessential car-windows-down, summer album. Each track provides a soundtrack to all the highs and lows of a teenage summer: optimism, (“Weightless”), love-induced mistakes (“Damned If I Do Ya (Damned If I Don’t),” “Too Much”) and the rumor-mill (“Sick Little Games,” “Keep The Change, You Filthy Animal”).

And in a time where over-produced synth-focused music rules the scene, All Time Low successfully balance the pop and the punk here. The aforementioned “Keep The Change” and “Break Your Little Heart” are riff-heavy cuts New Found Glory could have written circa 2002 and perfect to bounce to a show. Meanwhile, “Walls” and “Damned If I Do Ya” are Top 40-ready with high production values and tremendous hooks powered by vocalist Alex Gaskarth’s solid vocals. 

The band put it all together in the album’s opener, “Weightless,” which is nothing short of pop-punk punk perfection. Buoyed by adrenaline-pumping guitar work from Jack Barakat, the track explodes as Gaskarth lkwsings his simple, yet direct lyrics: “Maybe it’s not my weekend, but it’s gonna be my year / And I’m so sick of watching minutes pass as I go nowhere / This is my reaction to everything I fear.” Hands down, this is the best pop-punk song since Fall Out Boy’s “Sugar, We’re Going Down.”

Though the lyrics can sometimes be a little too simplistic (the aptly-titled “Too Much”) or downright stupid “Hello, Brooklyn”), every track here is certainly a joy to listen to. All Time Low have made the best pop-punk album of the year.