‘Oh, Common Life’ is the eagerly anticipated follow up to Fireworks 2011 sophomore effort – ‘Gospel’ an album which probably surprised a fair few people with it’s substance and songwriting. It was always clear as day since Fireworks first started teasing the record that ‘Oh, Common Life’ would be a straight progression from ‘Gospel’ and it’s something we’ve seen before, pop punk bands going into ‘srs’ territory, the likes of Valencia and Hit The Lights took this avenue and in all honesty it was never to great success. After a fair few listens through, ‘Oh, Common Life’ is up there as one of the best albums released this year.
If you’re looking for that pop punk edge then ‘Flies on Tape’ is about as close as you’re gonna get and even so it’s not typically pop punk but it does contain a vocal hook on the chorus that is bloody great. ‘One More Creature Dizzy With Love’ is unlike anything Fireworks have ever done before and it works stupidly well, it’s brooding without being moody and the bridge is epic without sounding pretentious. It will be interesting to see how these songs are worked into the bands live sets, it’s darker that anything they’ve done before and it’ll definitely be a challenge, hopefully they’ll be around to tour this record over here this time round.
Fireworks have written some of their best songs ‘Oh, Common Life’ the bridge to ‘The Only Thing That Haunts This House is Me’ is an absolute masterpiece, while the ever improving vocals of Dave Mackinder come straight to the forefront in ‘Run, Brother, Run’ a song which will go down as the albums best, it’s an incredibly poignant and well handled song that deals with the themes it does stupidly well. It’s brilliant.
‘Oh, Common Life’ is an important record. The themes of dealing with loss and depression are handled perfectly and will resonate with just about anyone who listens along. If there was any justice, this would be the album that finally pushes Fireworks to the heights in which they deserve to be. This is a band who have released three incredible albums one after another, each of them different from the last but not once has it ever sounded forced or pretentious, only natural. You need to listen to ‘Oh, Common Life’ it’s just that damn good.
CHRIS MARSHMAN