Customer Reviews

Explains It All

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

A few days ago, I purchased all three CD's that Four Year Strong has released for download: Enemy Of The World, Rise Or Die Trying, and Explains It All. While the other two releases are good contributions to the genre that lies on the border between emo and hardcore, this album leans to hard on the pop-punk sound for my taste. On their more recent albums, the band successfully experiments with the elements of hardcore, such as screaming vocal, double bass drum, and metal-influenced guitar riffs. Four Year Strong are now progressing into what they do best, and that's so much better than this attempt at pop-punk. So my recommendation is this: if you prefer the sugary sound of pop-punk, you might enjoy this album, but if you like a slightly grittier, more hardcore sound, download their other two albums.

This album is good stuff if you're a fan of the nineties. I had never heard of this band until I heard my friends talking about this album and I listened to some of it and loved it. I'm just gonna say this... the 90's rocked. I was a little kid and was all like "Hurray! No responsibilities!" Now in the 2000's I'm an adult with freaking bills. It straight up sucks at the moment. These songs take me back there and I think its cool that this band feels the same.

As a fan of Four Year Strong, I do tend to be a bit bias. But most people buying this CD are, in fact, fans, so we share the same bias. Though I would have much rather seen them come out with an album full of their own material, Four Year Strong makes the covers their own.
Sure, the punk may seem a bit strange to those who are used to the original versions, but that's what we all love about Four Year Strong. I particularly like the slightly hardcore screamo parts of songs that originally were intended for highly skilled vocals. It adds to the creativity of Four Year Strong. People don't listen to covers to hear them played EXACTLY as they were the first time around; they listen to them to hear the artist's/band's spin on it.
This CD may not be for everyone. But if you liked the "Punk Goes Pop" CDs, particularly Four Year Strong's rendition of Love Song, this CD is for you.

Perhaps I am a little young for the 90s themselves, but I do have my share of albums and I do remember most of these songs. I have a copy of Rise or Die Trying, and it was one of my favorite pop punk albums back in '08, and when i heard they had a new album i got really excited.
I feel like they picked the wrong style of songs to cover for this album. The whole "we're too punk rock to sing well" thing works for their own material, but the reason the 90s pop songs were so good in my mind was because the tunes were easy-going and the vocalists could sing. The covers are close to the originals, but with more edgy, rough guitars, thrown in Four Year Strong-style breakdowns and the typical strained, pitchy vocals which don't sound as good on a No Doubt song as one would expect, so really it seems like all Four Year Strong did was take a lot of my favorite songs, strip out all the things I liked about them. The album was a big disappointment, to say the least.
If you're looking for a good cover album, you're probably better off with Between the Buried and Me's Anatomy of... album. Wholly more satisfying.

This album was a HUGE let down. There isn't a single passable cover on this whole album. How could a solid band mess up covering some 90s classics, you ask? Well, they could sound rushed, uninspired, and just plain flat, that's how. The lyrics of the songs are all rushed through and the music is all flattened out and made uninteresting. Stick with the originals, these covers stink.