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Four Year Strong - Explains It All

Rating

RIYL

Set Your Goals
The Wonder Years
Timeless!
This Time Next Year

Release Date

07/21/2009

Label

I-Surrender

Tracklist

01) So Much for the Afterglow
02) Absolutely (Story of a Girl)
03) Ironic
04) Bullet with Butterfly Wings
05) Semi-Charmed Life
06) Spiderwebs
07) Roll to Me
08) Fly
09) In Bloom
10) She Really Loved You
11) She's So High

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Recent Ratings [more]
rosarito19	tim
jared	snoopydogg
Zach Roth	Rick Gebhardt

This is a release that blindsided the public. One afternoon, Four Year Strong asks the MySpace republic for pictures of themselves as children growing up in the 90s. Lo and behold, the guys from Massachusetts unleash Explains it All. This full-length 90s covers album is equipped with all the radio favorites. From Alanis Morissette (“Ironic”) to Third Eye Blind (“Semi-Charmed Life”) and even No Doubt (“Spiderwebs”), this album gets down with some classic pop hits. As new and kind of awkward as this idea sounds, it’s a good concept (and has been proven to work by other bands).

The now disbanded The Sophomore Attempt tried this idea with A Fine Tune Way of Motion. The cover album had hit songs from bands like Taking Back Sunday and The Early November. The album had a retail date and a released single but, however, ran into a snag when a computer problem caused all of their recorded songs to be erased. Luckily, this didn’t happen to Four Year Strong. The main issue with this cover album is whether or not the group will be able to speed up the songs while preserving the melodies and their inherent awesomeness. There’s definitely something to be said about the artists they’re covering. If you hate Everclear, then you’re probably going to hate the Everclear cover. Some songs covered on Explains it All were never good to begin with so it wasn’t a surprise to hear an aggressively sped up version of the same song also sucking.

Songs like “Absolutely (Story of a Girl)” and “Semi-Charmed Life" are classics and they’re played with the utmost emotion. Certain songs, such as these, actually sound similar to regular Four Year Strong songs with all the intensity in all the right places. Then you have songs that were just never fun to listen to, like “So Much for the Afterglow.” The intro is way too time-consuming. The only exception to the good song / good cover rule is “Roll to Me.” The group managed to actually cheese up the song by speeding it up. Ultimately, though, this is the only exception.

Some may see this as a bad album, but having bands cover recent bands is a positive step forward for everyone. Not only does it get fans and bands familiar with better music (possibly better than their own), but it also pays homage to those bands that made it and haven’t made it since. As “they” say, imitation is flattery. Also, with guest vocals from Keith Buckley of Every Time I Die and Travis McCoy of Gym Class Heroes, it’s worth at least one spin. From there, you can just choose what songs you’d like to keep.

--Jose Terrero