Will you still rock me when you’re no longer young and beautiful?
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[3.50]
Ian Mathers: Goddamnit, I thought the kids had moved on to exciting new forms of crap. This is the same crap we had back in my day.
[2]
David Sheffieck: Whatever the opposite of aging gracefully is, here’s its soundtrack: there are few survivors of the Warped Tour generation, and while All Time Low have stuck around, they shouldn’t have. The flopsweat is evident in every overstuffed chord and effect, and I was ready for the singer to break into a hacking cough/breathe into an oxygen mask after that final screech.
[3]
Micha Cavaseno: All Time Low are like a perpetual hangover of the pop-punk era, of the death of three-chord pop. They’ve never gotten older — I swear, this is the same band I heard of in 2008 all getting tattoos of the Blink-182 rabbit. These kids have the secrets of cryogenics. And not only are they the same band, but they have not progressed in physiology of a desire to make different music since almost a decade ago. They have no desire to, because nobody wants them to go beyond that. It’s scary how bands that are so regressive and have so few redemptive qualities continue to press on.
[1]
Jonathan Bradley: The other weekend I saw McBusted open for One Direction (on the previous tour, 5 Seconds of Summer occupied the slot) and if misfortune should waylay Britain’s answer to NKOTBSB, All Time Low could sub in seamlessly. To be honest, I’m surprised Warped Tour acts maintained their distinction from boy bands for this long, and in All Time Low’s case, having this much experience just means they execute the moves more expertly. A stronger hook would help a chorus like “pull me out of this sinking town” reach the emo heights it deserves, but I can’t be too mad at dudes who split the difference between Boys Like Girls and Hot Chelle Rae and end up better than either.
[6]
Ashley Ellerson: The boys may be in their mid-late 20s now, but they haven’t completely lost their pop punk lyricism. It’s the typical woes minus the “never growing up” mentality, because singing about being 17 forever isn’t cute when you’re over 21. This is the subtle growth of pop punk bands that’s enjoyable.
[7]
Brad Shoup: I’d love to see a chart detailing pop-punk tempos tracked over a band’s life. There’s an OK guitar motif here, but sharing it with the vocal is so lazy. The warm-tube hook should’ve recurred more than the shouting for sure.
[4]
Patrick St. Michel: A lot of so-so pop-punk songs have one moment that trick you into thinking “whoa, this is going to get good.” Here, it’s the pre-chorus bit, the most memorable passage of the whole song, quickly weakened by the shouty hook.
[4]
Alfred Soto: Thanks to the faux contempt, the faux meta-commentary of noting “the cliche in the song,” the depressing way in which the “oh”s and chords land in the expected places, I tend to believe the “empty space” the dude wants to “fill” refers to the girl but is too chickenshit to make his grossness explicit.
[1]
Luisa Lopez: Loud dopey boys filling their loud dopey garage with the rising clouds of polyphony. There are probably worse ways to spend a weeknight.
[3]
Scott Mildenhall: All Time Low probably don’t know it, but Feeder are still a going concern. Of course there’s every chance they’ve never heard of Feeder, but it’s a nice thought that perhaps, through osmosis, via a friend’s CD player player player player, the dependable sounds of Grant and the other ones could have been a formative influence on “Something’s Gotta Give”. Feeder would have afforded it a more satisfactory swoop, however.
[5]
Katherine St Asaph: Is sitting apathetic on the stadium bleachers pop-punk? Probably. It’s not so fun to listen to though.
[3]
Anthony Easton: I checked to see how long this lasted after a bit over a minute. I thought it was almost done, and I thought it’d been 7 minutes long. Something’s gotta give. It’s not this song.
[2]
Edward Okulicz: This gets an extra point because for the first 15 seconds, I thought it was a cover of the theme song from Last Week Tonight. It gets another one because it does, eventually, end.
[2]
Will Adams: It’s been a rough week, and I’d give anything to feel the simplicity of the early ’00s, when I could sit in the back of a station wagon and rock my head to fun, disposable punk-rock. Wake me up in spring; I might change my mind.
[6]