When bands beloved for their youthful disregard for dull convention that dictates that music must sound a certain way — that being off-key is bad, that aspiration should be beyond something to drunkenly yell along to while getting elbowed in a mosh pit — grow up, it can cause friction. When this coincides with their signing to a major label, it can cause much more. Folk-punk darlings The Front Bottoms initially announced their signing to Fueled by Ramen in 2015 and long-term fans were apprehensive. Departing from the indie rock roster of Run for Cover, moving into the radio-ready pop-punk of a major label seemed at odds with the band’s rough and ready sound, the band’s perfunctory approach to the musical side of things being secondary to emphatic lyrics of vaguely sketched exes and half-remembered house parties.
Back On Top, The Front Bottom’s first release on their new label’s, first track, ‘Motorcycle’, opens with a choir synth that conjures memories of slamming Yamaha keys anarchically in school music lessons. Anxieties of a newfound sheen glossing over the grit that held the charm initially appear to be confirmed. Yet, as this gaudiness gives way to a full bodied riff, you are left wondering if maybe you’re not in on the joke. Back on Top does signify a shift from the wholly acoustic instrumentation of previous efforts, but newly clean riffs that stick in your head sit comfortably with the miscellany already assembled (trumpets, anyone?).
Glimpses of the lyrical themes that the band would go on to build upon in subsequent releases begin to appear — a sense of advancing age providing an anxiety that gnaws under the surface of scream-ya-throat-raw anthems of youth and the road through a haze of substances. It never wallows. Even the stark hospital setting of the final track ‘Plastic Flowers’ gives way to determined optimism in the face of a world that takes and takes from everybody: “I believe that someone, somewhere has got a plan for me / They got a plan for me, even if I don’t know it yet.”
‘West Virginia’ is a truly great song: it’s shocking that a track that seems so essential, so encompassing of a mission statement and a flourish of what they do best, can be released this far into an artist’s career. There’s no shortage to bands leaning into nomadic narratives as touring life becomes the only life and all that is before them to write about is the road ahead. When it comes to The Front Bottoms, this recursion seems to allow for perfecting, as they pay homage to a variety of places they have encountered and bonded with throughout their career.
Though the album does have its weaker moments (even as someone with an admittedly high capacity for cheesiness, I struggle with the blatancy of gang vocals calling to “wave your hands in the air like you just don’t care,” tongue-in-cheek as they may be) it feels trite, but true, to a band where any new songs are lovingly welcomed on the merit of them being new songs, told by people that fans want to hear from. And that’s where The Front Bottoms continued to succeed on this album, as they continue their mission of transform the vignettes of one life into the rallying cry for roomfuls who see themselves reflected.
Words by Flora Pick
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