When Boston’s Four Year Strong released their 2007 breakthrough album ‘Rise Or Die Trying’, they couldn’t have had any idea just how prescient that title would turn out to be. To describe the band’s fortunes over the past 8 years as ‘a mixed bag’ would be an understatement on a par with labelling the Atlantic Ocean ‘somewhat damp’. Signing to Universal/Motown by way of Pete Wentz’s Decaydance label, the band’s first post-‘Rise’ release was the fun-but-pointless 90s cover album ‘Explains It All’ – a placeholder, really, to break the silence between releases RODT and 2010’s well-received ‘Enemy Of The World’.
The first signs of distress appeared when the band announced the departure of keyboardist Josh Lyford, on the basis that their new material didn’t have a place for his particular instrument. When that new material…um, materialised in 2011’s ‘In Some Way, Shape or Form’ it became clear that the band had made a deliberate change to their entire aesthetic. Gargantuan riffs and beatdowns accompanied by literally cartoonish artwork were out; radio-friendly rock songs and actual photographs were in.
Also out: album sales and the band’s record deal. Sure, they may have been the victim of a label merger which left them ‘essentially done’ but common sense suggests that had ISWSOF sold as many copies as EOTW, Universal probably would have found a way to keep hold of Four Year Strong. We’re not naive enough to suggest that album sales and major label A&R representatives are a barometer of quality – after all, Capitol were more than happy to drop Jimmy Eat World after the release of ‘Clarity’, a.k.a Your Favourite Band’s Favourite Album – but when a band as established as FYS were in 2011 suffers a 50% drop in first-week album sales it’s hard not to wonder whether there’s more to blame than a simple lack of PR.
For many the suspicion that the ‘maturation’ of the band’s sound was a cynical and failed attempt to ‘go mainstream’ was only confirmed by 2014’s ‘Go Down In History’ EP and its gloriously jarring shift back to the ‘easycore’ sound that made the band. And now the devolution of Four Year Strong continues with full-length album, ‘Four Year Strong’.
Or does it?
Yes, the riffs are back and yes, the cover sports eye-popping cartoon representations of the now-quartet. But while many fans are echoing the sentiments of the not-at-all-bitter Lyford, who recently tweeted “Ah shucks, I guess writing a shitty radio pop record didn’t work, might as well grovel to our original fanbase. Sick art too, looks familiar“, but the band themselves have stated that ‘Four Year Strong’ is a deliberate attempt to bridge the perceived gap between EOTW and ISWSOF. While that seems a natural defense against accusations of pandering, we submit that it’s actually a pretty accurate representation of the album.
Although fans seem to have been buoyantly blinded by FYS’ ‘return to form’ and/or their ‘heavier’ side, this isn’t a simple step back to basics. From that psychedelic cover – all purples and browns and lava-lamp fonts – to the gargantuan, Sabbath-esque stoner riff that opens ‘Wipe Yourself Off Man, You Dead’, the record is shot through with a tinge of 70s rock. And you know what that means: a whole bunch of guitar solos.
The band may have reverted to chugging away while singing hooks that blend harmonies with throat-tearing roughness, but the beatdowns and blast beats have been replaced with sweeping, melodic guitar runs. And it really, really works. If this album had been released between ‘Enemy Of The World’ and ‘In Some Way, Shape Or Form’ it’s hard to believe we would have heard ISWSOF at all, such is the success of this easycore hybrid.
It’s not flawless, though. The first four tracks are as strong an opening as you’ll hear on any album this year, but the mid-section is saggier than Fred Durst’s shorts and about as charismatic with the instantly-forgettable ‘Gravity’ being a particular low point. The placement of the previously-released ‘I’m A Big, Bright, Shining Star’ at the end of this duff run jerks the listener back into attention, but also serves to highlight the dip in quality which immediately precedes it.
Questions have been asked, too, about the logic of closing the album with a re-recorded version of the title track from ‘Go Down In History’ but to us that song always felt like a triumphant closing statement. In the context of the album and with detail (and something vaguely resembling dynamic range) brought to the fore by Kurt Ballou’s production we actually think it’s found its true home.
Four Year Strong are dead. Long live Four Year Strong.
ROB BARBOUR