Four Year Strong - Enemy of the World

Boston-bred hardcore/pop-punk band Four year Strong's Enemy of the World opens with the single "It Must Really Suck to Be Four Year Strong Right Now," which contains the lyric "Don't fix it if it hasn't broken yet." It's a good thing to remember - I'm going to sum up their approach and my reaction in that single line.

...

Just kidding.

Four Year Strong aren't a band that sets out to reinvent themselves with every song or every album; they set out to be consistent, riff your brains out and write some tight, explosive pop-punk. I'm in the middle of writing a feature involving The Offspring, and their approach makes me think this is the evolution of that band's approach: some very metallic elements laid over a foundation of strong hooks and punkish speed. Their sound is heavy, but never brutal - even their singers' roaring vocalization isn't really going to threaten anybody but the feebly elderly. It's just what you expect of the sound. The drums rarely slow, and the instruments push and pull on different tempos ("fast" and "wicked fast," in Bostonian parlance) to make everything feel like everything is always moving toward something. Yet there is never a shortage of listenability - all eleven songs present on the album pulverize the ears, but they also keep the melodies at front and center. The choruses are infectious.

This is important, because Four Year Strong's music is specifically meant to be channeled into its audience singing back to them in concert. All the backing vocals are recorded to sound how they probably are in concert: like a huge mass of fans singing back these lyrics. These are little songs meant to make little shows sound like arena spectacles. They're not gonna stop to smell the roses, but they also make sure that everyone can keep up. The bridges slow down just enough to let everyone feel the music swell before the chorus hits again. A single word to describe the band is "Communal." They told AbsolutePunk that they "just play exactly what we want to hear." To an extent, most bands do that (I'm sure Radiohead's not in a studio right now noodling around on music they hate), but for Four Year Strong, that means their fans share their very same passions.

That leads to all the lyrics being very overdramatic: broad but deliberately and easily relatable. Everything's about misery; death is almost a recurring theme. Variations on the idea of "proving that [someone is] alive" show up on "Nineteen with Neck Tatz" and "Find My Way Back" - two consecutive songs in the middle of the album. The hook to "Flannel is the Color of My Energy": "'cause I don't wanna live another day without your company." Even the album's title implies a unity against something bigger than the band. Is this directness a fault? Maybe. It gets repetitive to hear it over and over again, but there's comfort to be gleaned from the very shared nature of everything in music. Everything is tailor-made for maximum chanting, singing along and being part of something in the moment.

So, no, the album doesn't quite set the world on fire. They're not the most original band, and their set of ideas can feel limited a couple songs away from the end of it. But the genre's not meant to be experienced as a record on a hard drive as an end unto itself. This music thrives in concert, surrounded by fans who feel the same way. As a side note, it's admirable that there's nothing alienating about it. Everyone gets a chance to feel, whatever that feeling is. It almost feels like a bonus that they're skilled musicians who aren't wasting their time on silly novelty ditties. It hasn't broken yet.