It was back in 2007 and 2008 that I went through my sugar coated pop punk bands phase; Hit The Lights, Forever The Sickest Kids, Hey Monday, The Friday Night Boys and All Time Low were my preferred musical choice back then. Obviously I have since moved onto other music so reviewing this re-issue from All Time Low I had to adjust my brain back a couple of years.
This release see’s the band’s album ‘Don’t Panic’ re-issued with four added new tracks and four acoustic songs at the end thrown in for good measure. So let’s backtrack just a little bit for a moment and go over what I thought about ‘Dont Panic’ on its own without the new added songs.
The album is what it is, It’s a pop punk album chocked full of catchy as hell songs. Opener ‘The Reckless And The Brave’ has that bouncy catchy guitar sound running through it. Some songs really have that memorable chorus line that sticks in your brain for days after, ‘If These Sheets Were States’ and ‘For Baltimore’ are two songs with this. The lyrics are easy enough for fans to sing along live and enough to really repeat in your head after hearing them a few good times.
The band tries out the really speedy fast punk rhythms on ‘So Long Soldier’ and funnily enough they pull it off quite well. With the addition of Bayside’s Anthony Raneri providing some added vocals to the song it powers along well. Other guest vocalists pop up on the album as well, Cassadee Pope on ‘Backseat Serenade’ and Jason Vena on ‘Outlines’.
Now onto the new songs added for the re-issue which do fit onto the album quite well and maybe give indications of what is to come from a future album release. ‘A Love Like War’ is a great song mainly for the fact Pierce The Veil’s Vice Fuentes adds some good vocals to run alongside Alex’s much deeper vocals. A more echo and bouncy yet rocky orchestral sounding song is ‘Canals’, sounding more like Santana who’s eaten smarties and given a guitar it’s interesting and works.
‘Me Without You (All I Ever Wanted)’ is one of those catchy chorus songs like I mentioned earlier. The chorus line is catchy and memorable and really fits into the rest of the album really well. Slowing down for the final new song ‘Oh, Calamity´ allows the band to play some lead guitar and some solos and also show off their lyric writing as well.
The four acoustic songs are what they say in the title, transferring the songs to acoustic is only what they’ve done. The songs allow Alex Gaskarth to show off his vocals and at times he impresses even though I’m sure they were recorded quite quickly to rush this release. ‘Somewhere In Neverland’ has some added violin instead of the lead guitar and it works well stripped right down. ‘Backseat Serenade’ is a more plucking acoustic guitar style song and is a nice approach to the song.
Overall the re-issue isn’t anything too exciting with only three new songs and four acoustic songs (your best just downloading them on iTunes instead of buying the album again). But it’s a nice sickly sweet pop punk record that transported me back to 2007 and 2008 and reminded me of happy times.
3.5/5
‘Don’t Panic: It’s Longer Now’ by All Time Low is available now on Hopeless Records.
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Words by Aaron Wilson (@soundslikeajw)
