By Jeremy Quintin
Elm Staff Writer
During my time as a music critic for The Elm, I’ve managed to write reviews for Electronic Dance Music, Classical Performances, and nothing in between. Basically, I’ve ignored every single advent in music history from the 18th century to the start of the 21st . That’s why today I’m happy to be reviewing the punk rock band Four Year Strong’s latest album “In Some Way, Shape, or Form”. Well, mostly happy despite a few irksome things in the album.
To start, the musical construction of the album is simple but pleasant. Each song is a well-crafted progression of melodic distorted guitar chords and simplistic notation, which creates that awesome rebellious atmosphere for which punk rock achieved much of its fame.
However, the album’s typical punk rock construction doesn’t do much for ingenuity. It runs into some basic problems like a drowned -out bass guitar which can hardly be distinguished as an individual instrument. The rest of the instruments have been mixed and mastered well, but the bass guitar only appears during breakdowns, if at all. While sounding very enjoyable, Four Year Strong doesn’t dynamically separate their album from the rest of the punk herd.
Of course, so much about what makes music sound good comes down to personal opinion. I don’t think Four Year Strong sounds bad. On the contrary, they’re quite good, but I’ll leave that hot potato aspect of the album behind to discuss something which seemingly has a lot more critical focus shined on it: their lyrics.
At first glance, “In Some Way, Shape, or Form” seems like a very sympathetic and existential album about self-discovery and overcoming hardship. There are two running motifs in the album.
One is about the sun burning out, losing your way because of light dying out in life and leaving you lost in the dark. The sun motif also suggests that this darkness is temporary and so your life will eventually return to the light. The other running motif is about mirrors, symbolizing yourself being the enemy, and how you have become an obstacle in your own life.
The first two songs “The Infected” and “The Security of the Familiar, The Tranquility of Repetition” discuss this very well. Just by the title of the second song, you can tell it is about finding yourself trapped in routine and how this dissatisfactory repetition becomes a comfort in our lives. The song itself expounds on how, becoming conscious of this, we realize that we miss a whole out there every day.
There are some very creative lyrics, especially in “Stuck in The Middle,” which describes following lost ambitions from a new start as “living out, broken dreams flying with a crippled wing.” That to me is absolutely beautiful, and this album manages to repeat this beauty many times.
But- and this is a big but- it seems that the album is very bitter on the whole and takes out a lot of aggression on many nameless figures, which is a dangerous game to play. Another large aspect of punk rock is self-identification, or the ability to find oneself in the lyrics and relate to the problems discussed. The use of pronouns then allows words like “we” and “you” to become “I” and “me”, and “you” often spend a lot of time being called unforgivable, like in “Fairweather Fan,” and a loser like in “Unbreakable.” While you aren’t necessarily “you,” Four Year Strong is very heavy handed in their opinion of what is right so that at times the listener might be hard-pressed to listen. The album runs into this problem multiple times, but overall still maintains a good sound and cleverly crafted lyrics, so that at the very least the album is worth checking out for those high points mentioned.