Brain Pain

Four Year Strong

Massachusetts rock outfit, Four Year Strong, followed up what I think was their strongest album with last year's Brain Pain. If you're not familiar with this band, the most important thing for you to know is that they are a guitar-lover's wet dream. Throughout the band's career, they have crafted some of the catchiest guitar riffs and tags in modern rock. Whenever I hear the tired argument that 'guitar music is dead,' or something to that effect, I try to direct them to Four Year Strong. The band also straddles between these tooth-aching pop sensibilities and crushing metal aggression in a way that is perhaps only rivalled by band's like Torche. They often get slapped with the 'easycore' tag because of this which carries a bit of a negative connotation, but the band has been together for about 20 years now and have refined their sound to the point where it's not something to scoff at.

This record is interesting because it seems to be drifting away from that easycore formula; less chugging breakdowns basically. However, this album feels like their heaviest with the oppressive, thick, distorted guitars and the relentless fried vocal assaults from Alan Day and Dan O'Connor. While I'm impressed with just how much distortion they can pile onto their voice and still manage to hold a note, on this record, that vocal delivery is almost constant throughout which leads to a bit of ear fatigue once you get past the midway point. This is really my only complaint about the sound of the record though as I find the rest of the musical elements to actually be an improvement over their last record.

Where I think this album falters for me generally is that the guitar parts didn't really floor me the way they typically do on a Four Year Strong Record. Although, it could come down to me just expecting guitar greatness at this point and creating this impossible standard in my head. None of the riffs are particularly bad, but that 'wow' factor does seem to be missing. There is one exception though and that's the album's opener It's Cool. If you're only gonna check out one song from this record, let it be that one because no other song is as explosive and exhilarating as this one. It opens with what I can only describe as a symphony of distorted guitar. We have one guitar chugging away at this one note while another gradually pieces together a pretty dizzying sequence of guitar notes. There is a quick calm moment after this section before the rug is pulled out from under you and the band blasts into this pop-punk, metal passage. The band pulls the rug out again in the most brilliant 'fool me twice' move by going into the band's most crushing breakdown to date. I know the 'pop-punk breakdown' is sort of cliché at this point and the band is trying to rely on it less and less. But the truth is they do it better than everyone else and it makes me sad there isn't another moment like this on the record.

Another song that subverted expectations a little bit was the track Seventeen which kinda flipped the grunge formula on it's head. The verses are loud and heavy but the choruses are surprisingly tame. The chorus also features one of my favourite guitar riffs on the record as well. The song's sentiment is certainly universal as well, talking about wanting to go back to being seventeen; just on the precipice of adulthood where we had absolute freedom without the weight of having to survive and thrive on our own. It was a much simpler time. One song that subverted expectations in the worst way possible is Be Good When I'm Gone. The album needed a cool-down moment but I'm not sure anyone wanted this. This track is a painfully cheesy 90s boy-band, soft-rock ear sore that instrumentally and lyrically lives up to the album's title. There was no reason for this song to ever see the light of day.

After adjusting for expectations, this is still a really solid rock record. Four Year Strong's 'passable' is still better and more interesting than anything their contemporaries are crafting. Perhaps just a little more guitar spontaneity, a little more differentiation in vocal delivery and song dynamics would put this album over the top. The band has struck lightning before on numerous songs in their catalogue, but have yet to do it for the span of an entire album. They have it in them. I know it.