Rating: 6.5/10
When I was younger, All Time Low was one od my favourite bands. Then I graduated high school and sort of tried to leave that pop punk phase behind. But even though I wasn’t 16 anymore, the band continued releasing records. I forgot about them for some time, until a kid at my old work asked, about my DON’T PANIC tattoo, if it was “for the All Time Low album.”
“My God,” I thought. “Do I really look like the kind of person who would get a pop punk band tattoo? Moreover, what is this album, because I’ve never heard of it.”
So I went home and I caught up on all of the All Time Low albums that I had missed since my attempt to leave hometown pop punk behind.
I didn’t miss much. The band stayed loyal to their sound and themes, never really departing from their angsty guitar strumming and lyrics about assorted girls and the desperate need to get away from this place, wherever it might be.
Future Hearts, however, does take a step away from where they’re going, and I think that’s why it wasn’t that great in the grand scheme of things. Ultimately, I think I was disappointed. But I also don’t know what I was expecting– perhaps another Dirty Work or a return to their old stuff. But then again, the album was released as a follow-up to Don’t Panic, meaning that it was, by nature, due to see the band evolving, just like Don’t Panic showed them changing ever so slightly, as if scared to alienate any old listeners or fans.
“Satellite,” the opener, already sounds a little more aggressive and rough at the edges than what they’ve done before. There’s a clear rhythm, but the sound is all jumbled up, like All Time Low but not really All Time Low. It’s not a complete departure from their original sound, but it’s clearly different– as if someone put the band into a blender and spit out a somewhat distorted version of them.
The change is evident, and it seemed like they wanted people to notice– but not so obvious that the listener is shocked. On first listen, I was surprised that this was the band that I had, essentially, worshipped in my youth, because it sounded nothing like Nothing Personal. It was a little tougher, a little bleaker, a little more forward with the guitars and not so reliant on sweetheart lyrics to soften their music. “Kids In The Dark,” for example, is deeply unfamiliar territory for the band. It’s almost rebellious, the way they’ve decided to move in a slightly more heavy rock styled influence. “Runaways” is similar-sounding to what they’ve previously put out, and clearly a step back in influence to their old stuff. “Missing You” sounds oddly like “Hey There Delilah” by Plain White Ts. Like The Maine, it seems like All Time Low wants a departure from the pop punk genre that hyper-lasered them into fame in the first place. And maybe that’s not a bad thing– maybe it’s just hard to see my old bands changing and growing up, because it reminds me that I, too, am growing up, and one day we’ll all be old or dead.
“Bail Me Out” features Joel Madden, and it’s surprisingly good. Probably the best song on the album, it somehow combines the love for the old with the band’s need to step up and get with the new. I know they need a change. I’m just so unwilling to accept it.
Perhaps we expect too much from All Time Low ever since the release of “Dear Maria, Count Me In,” which changed the lives of countless teens and preteens across the globe. Perhaps the change is organic, even though it seems forced. Maybe that’s just me, though. I guess this is growing up?
