Progression is a real funny thing; and Four Year Strong have got it all wrong on this, their third (original) studio album. Where Rise Or Die Trying and Enemy Of The World were phenomenal recods, rocking a straight up pop punk sound influenced with heavier moments, this album sees the band not only abandon ship, but abandon all hope too (god awful song title pun there, sorry).
It sees FYS shoot for the stars in Foo Fighters fashion, but ultimately fall drastically short. The reason is simple too; they don't have the songs here to anywhere near replicate the genius of the Foo Fighters. And what they do in the process of trying to push further into the mainstream, is not only alienate their diehard fans, but lose everything about them that was special to start with.
Having said that, the opening The Infected has a monstrous riff at the outset, before petering off into middle of the road rock territory that fails to inspire. It's ok, but not a patch on the mesmerizing sounds of their first two albums. Security Of The Familiar, Stuck In The Middle and Just Drive all peddle the same path too, all the while sounding like a band who have really done away with, and wholly lost, their true identity.
Fairweather Fan and Falling On You even predict the obvious fan backlash to their record, with the latters lyric of "Brace yourself for the backlash, it's falling on you" proving to be all too prophetic in this instance.
Unbreakable scratches the surface of the old FYS, with "We are the ones that won't back down, We are the ones who stand our ground" getting closer to familiar territory, and Bring On The World tries further, but all that good work is lost by the utterly horrid opening moments of Only The Meek Get Pinched.
This is an average record, from a band that are capable of SO much more.
This really doesn't work.
4/10
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