It’s a fairly big achievement for pretty much any band to reach their sixth studio album these days. It shows resilience and complete and utter dedication to the music you create. All Time Low have gone about their business with little to no fuss, churning out albums that have always been remarkably consistent, with ‘Future Hearts’ you see a band aiming to finally take that jump to the level they’ve been threatening to find for years now.
Things get going with ‘Satellite’ which is an okay opener that doesn’t quite hit the heights that All Time Low are aiming for… you can see what it is they’re trying to do, the huge singalong anthem to open up live sets and maybe it’ll sound as big as it needs to do in a live environment, but on record it falls a bit flat. Thankfully though, from here on in it’s absolute wall to wall bangers. ‘Kicking & Screaming’ is a classic All Time Low track with a massive chorus too while ‘Kids in the Dark’ is ready made for the arenas they’ve been touring recently.
One of the stand out tracks on ‘Future Hearts’ is ‘Missing You.’ Say what you like about All Time Low, but they know how to write a song that is going to appeal straight to their demographic, ‘Missing You’ is a prime example of that with it’s emotive subject matter it’s going to appeal to a lot of their fans. It’s a bloody good song too, simplicity at it’s best, this’ll be a staple in their live shows for a long time going forward. All Time Low hold no punches with getting their mates involved in ‘Future Hearts’ too… the appearance of Mark Hoppus in ‘Tidal Waves’ while it isn’t a hugely special cameo by any means, it just gives credence to how big All Time Low are aiming to go with this record.
At 45 minutes and 13 songs long ‘Future Hearts’ can be guilty of dragging a little bit, the band probably could’ve gotten away with cutting at least one song out (‘Dancing with a Wolf’ I’m looking at you’) but that’s a minor gripe which doesn’t detract in any major way from the overall listening experience. There’s not much better than an absolute banger of a closing track though and with ‘Old Scars / Future Hearts’ All Time Low get it bang on right, album closers should always leave the listener wanting more, and this song does just that.
With ‘Future Hearts’ All Time Low have completely outdone themselves. It could easily have gone pear shaped for them after leaving Interscope Records but they just got on with it… they dusted themselves down, picked themselves up and with ‘Future Hearts’ they’ve released their most confident and accomplished record to date. This is the album that ‘Dirty Work’ should’ve been but All Time Low weren’t ready then… they are now and with a number one album on the horizon you can probably expect to see the All Time Low train get a whole lot bigger over the coming months.
CHRIS MARSHMAN