I’ve never really understood the success of pop-punk bands like New Found Glory, Sum 41 and the like. It’s a genre where to me all the bands sound so similar it’s hard to find anything memorable about individual bands or even songs. Bearing this in mind I tried to approach reviewing this debut album from American quintet Four Year Strong with an open mind. Every band deserves a chance! 

I was hopeful of something at least a little different when the press release mentioned that they included influences from hardcore bands in their sound. The song titles seemed interesting too but after listening to the likes of “Prepare To Be Digitally Manipulated” and “Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Hell” I was a bit disappointed. The hardcore elements do come through with some shout-a-long chorus lines amongst the usual pop-punk harmonies and the songs changing rhythm behind some chunky double kick drums but in the end this variation on a formula just becomes a new formula. The mix in styles sometimes sounds interesting and other times the pop-punk and hardcore sound rather like they’re being forced together for the sake of it. Even so it’s hard to tell individual songs apart even with titles like “Bada Bing! Wit A Pipe” and “If He’s Here, Who’s Running Hell?”.  

Rise Or Die Trying is far from a bad album as the band are obviously very good at what they do, it’s just too far from a memorable one for my liking. Of course if you love this genre you may disagree and when they hit the UK later in the year they may turn out to be a ferocious live act! Personally I’ll hope for a second album which builds on their more individual traits.

Ian Sutherland