News Flash! Pop-punk can grow up, and it can do so without aping stadium rock or pretending that the folks in the band are still scrubby kids barely in their twenties. Or at least this is what I believe after hearing this new album from The Wonder Years. No Closer to Heaven contains thirteen tracks brimming with earnest emotions, fantastic music, and honest reflections on the trials and tribulations of maturing into a semi-responsible adult. And lucky for you – it’s much more exciting than that sentence made it sound!
Released September 2015 on Hopeless Records, the album finds Dan “Soupy” Campbell expanding his scope beyond the confines of the hyperbole and hypocrisies of suburban American life to examine love, loss, friendship, materialism, contemporary masculinity, and more. He puts his tremendous tenor to work on paeans like “Cardinal” when he intones “I know that I failed you, woke up in a sweat. I want those years back,” to his late friend Mike Pelone. And when he proclaims “I think I’m growing into someone you could trust. I want to shoulder the weight until my back breaks,” on “I Don’t Like Who I Was Then,” those exact sentiments ring truer and truer in my life the older I become.
And it certainly helps that the band creating such fantastic pop-punk sounds better than ever. The guitar work of Matthew Brasch, Casey Cavaliere, and Nicholas Steinborn combine equal parts sparkle, gleam, crunch, and sneer to great effect, while the delicious rumble of Joshua Martin’s bass evince a musician who prefers melodic textures to generic root notes. But the driving soul of the group’s sound is the impressive drumming of Michael Kennedy, specifically his penchant for syncopation and playing just off the beat to elevate The Wonder Years above its peers (and many of its influences).
With standout tracks that include “A Song for Patsy Cline,” “Thanks for the Ride,” and “I Wanted So Badly to Be Brave,” No Closer to Heaven embraces the fact The Wonder Years are growing up by choosing to fight apathy and indifference with the knowledge and perspective that comes with age. Throw in several dashes of righteous frustration and a passion to change past behaviors (or break the cycle for future generations), and you’ve got a powerful album that loves punk rock, proudly embraces second-wave emo, and showcases Soupy’s status as one of the most powerful lyricists operating in rock music today.
Rating: 3.75/5