Coming Home

[apsham]

1. Oxygen

2. Hold My Hand

3. It's Not Your Fault

4. On My Mind

5. Coming Home

6. Make Your Move

7. Taken Back by You

8. Too Good to Be

9. Love and Pain

10. Familiar Landscapes

11. When I Die

12. Connected

13. Boulders

Alright, let me first say that New Found Glory was the first band that I really got into to, and I've ate up everything that they've put out ever since. I don't think that I have ever been as pumped for a CD as I have for this one. I've heard some of it leaked and it's just... amazing. It's a different sound, definatly but... it's good. This is sort of like their "maturing" akin to Blink 182, but then again they didn't have that much to do compared to Blink. I can't wait to pick up the album on Tuesday... all of you should too. No matter what music I've gotten into, I find it odd that New Found Glory always manages to stay on as my favorite of all time.

[YI]

BOOSH!

"COMING HOME" by NEW FOUND GLORY :

I admit I was never much of a New Found Glory fan. They had some catchy songs, with some solid hooks, but some really boring songs. And this album brings across pretty much the same vibe. The pace seems to have slowed down from what I can remember, and the album reminds me very much of The Used's first album (Before they got ultra-faggy and forgot how to write somewhat solid songs). As I said this album seems to suffer from the same vibe as their previous efforts. For every good song they write, they seem to have a couple of poor/mediocre songs. New Found Glory songs were never the centre of lyrical excellence, so it doesn't surprise me that I seem to enjoy the songs that have catchy little "Woah's", "Doo's" and "Oh's" in them. The first song that jumped out at me was "Hold My Hand". I'm a sucker for piano...even if the piano playing is not very technical...and if all it does is play the vocal line. It has a good 'drive' to it. It's as though since the success of Green day fagging out, everyone and their dog wants to do a slow song. And nine times out of ten they suck (Strike Anywhere's "The Ballad Of Bloody Run" = the worst possible thing that band could ever do, including paedophillia). Pennywise had a good one on "The Fuse"...and erm...DBS did a good one too...erm Strung Out had been doing one or two slower songs for years...plus "Vampires" isn't that slow, as such. Plus the riff is every kind of sexy. I've going off on a tangent here. Back to the album. "On My Mind" fucking sucks. The title track is of course solid, if it were awful they wouldn't name the album after it (Green Day...take notes...yes I am in the mood for Green Day bashing tonight...shush). "Taken Back By You" has a pretty sweet riff, the rest of the song is alright, nothing. But better than most here.

The basic principle here is that these bands are maturing. But I don't want them to mature. I still want them to be those stupid bands full of young kids that play poppy music to brighten your day. Now what do the kids these days listen to? No wonder we're breeding a generation of emo fucks. All their 'favourite bands' are become 'gaywads'. There's the token acoustic track on their. And for the record, NFG's clapping > Lost Prophet's clapping. Meh, 4/10. The handful of songs that are generally good are good. I admire them for doing something different. But how they used to sound like Green Day, Blink and Sum 41 in a blender, now they just sound like pretty much everything popular now tossed into a blender. There's still a handful of catchy melodies. But I still find myself drawn to the faster poppier numbers. Because whether they like it or not, that's what they do best. And that's what ultimately what will sell them records. And the piano playing seems so, I dunno...erm...'pre-school' for the lack of another expression (I actually cannot think of the word I was going to say). Especially in "Familiar Landscapes". Sit a little kid in front of a piano and he'd produce that riff in 3 seconds...and he'll keep playing it (Like they) to the point that it gets INCREDIBLY, INCREDIBLY ANNOYING!!

BEST SONGS : Hold My Hand, Coming Home, It's Not Your Fault, Taken Back By You

Edited September 14, 2006 by Mr. Kurt McKenna