Day 90

02: Grown Ups - More Songs

There are parts of me that want to hate More Songs, Grown Ups first proper release and follow up to last years mega gut-buster, Songs. It lacks almost all of the raw, noisy, lo-fi, shoot-from-the-hip style emo-pop punk that their ep was jammed packed full of. Where Songs sounded like a spur of the moment basement recording session, More Songs teeters on being over produced and overly polished. For instance there is a section in Songs version of "Three Day Weekend" the band uses a simple cough as a fill, in the new version removes the cough and replaces it with a standard drum-fill. When i played with Grown Ups earlier this year I asked their singer Doyle about it and he said the cough was a mistake that just fit.. Part of me agrees with the idea of not putting the cough in the new record because it would be disingenuous to try to recreate something so spur of the moment, however the cough is a microcosm for the sound of the entire record. When you get down to it on a literal level More Songs is exactly what the title claims it to be, it's all the tracks from Songs with a couple more; almost all of the ear splitters are rerecorded from the before mentioned ep and sprinkled throughout this record. Look, when it comes down to it everything about this record is asking for me to hate it, but i fucking can't, it's so fucking good that it's easily one of my most listened to records of the year. More Songs is such a fantastic display of what pop-punk could be if the musicians give a damn putting out a good product. Their impressive noodly guitar work and their ballistic, change on a dime drumming, serves as the perfect backdrop to the raspy, lung straining, squawks and chants. Grown Ups might be one of the most charming and infectious bands i have ever heard. Their music makes me feel young in all the best ways, they are the emo band I wish i had when i was fourteen. Every track on the record feels like an adventure, everything feels vital, important and so wide eyed it hurts. Sure the production quality takes away a little bit of the charm that Grown Ups came fully loaded with, but god dammit it doesn't matter, i'm going to go out on a limb here and say More Songs is one of the best pop-punk records released. ever. put that in your pipe and smoke it Tom Delonge.


-YtWt