Answer Is Near

Alright, alright, alright. Ugh. I made sure I listened to every song at least 5 songs as I knew I was coming in expecting, well...not the greatest and this might affect my opinion of the first couple listens. I'll just go song by song.

Take Me To The Top: I was not loving this song at all on first listen but it has admittedly started to grow on me. This may be entirely because now I'm comparing it to the rest of the album (spoiler alert?) but I think this song does have some redeeming qualities. I really like the bridge, and I can at least enjoy the catchiness of the chorus. It's a decent representation of the album, you have the generic chorus battling (we'll call this Taka) battling against the more musically pleasing bridge (Toru, Tomoya and Ryota) with effects everywhere. (John Feldman) Also the ever annoying "Whoa whoa whoas" everywhere. 6.5/10

Cry Out: I honestly really like this song. I've now gotten used to the dueling styles and I think it works in this song much better than some of the others on the album (cough One by One cough). I can actually hear Taka and unlike much of the other songs I feel like I can actually hear Toru on the guitar, Ryota on the bass and Tomoya on the drums unlike a bunch of the others that could be any studio musicians as far as I'm concerned. It's got One Ok Rock's standard catchy chorus without stooping to the simple levels of genericism like say Take Me To The Top. 8.5/10

Suddenly: Suddenly my hope for this album is falling. I like the first 9 seconds than it's just ugh. It reminds me of early Simple Plan, which if you know me isn't a compliment. Just so devoid of all feeling, in fact Taka doesn't even sound good until the last note of the song. Very mediocre song. 4/10

Mighty Long Fall: I love MLF. It's not a Top 5 One Ok Rock Song (my list is some mixture of The Beginning, Liar, Ending Story, Nobody's Home, Pierce and the Same As) but I seriously think it's Top 10 or Top 12. The melody is on point, it's freaking catchy, the bridge has me headbanging, the effects are there to accent the song not to dominate it. Great Song. 10/10

Heartache: I'm tempted to compare it to some of ONE OK ROCK ballads past; Wherever You Are, Pierce, All Mine and I think it falls short of those lofty heights, but it's certainly a shining point of the album. It's sweet, it feels like Taka, mushy, cheesy and adorable and it feels like ONE OK ROCK. 9/10

Memories: Okay, I've never really cared that much about One Ok Rock's lyrics. They are way down on the list of reasons I love One Ok Rock. Their english lyrics as a whole have never been amazing and according to the japanese exchange students I've had the pleasure of living with the past 5 years, their japanese lyrics are nothing special either. But what the hell is this!? "Just go fuck yourself, " "Don't want to be a has-been..." "Watching outer space I see them shine, crazy stuff like this just blows my mind" WTF is that!? Not too mention Taka sounds terrible singing it. The first 3 seconds are awesome the rest is just a giant turd. 1.5/10

Decision: I'm sure anyone who follows me know how I feel about Decision. I hate it, the fact it came out on my birthday probably fuels some of this rage. But really it's at worst the 3rd worst song on this album. In fact, if you take out the wretched, "da da da da da" I'd probably rate it a fair bit higher. I'll never really know if my hatred for Decision is cause it's not a great song or because it was the first signs of mediocrity OOR was heading towards. But hey, I don't mind Pieces of Me. 4.5/10

The Abomination: I first saw temporarilyunstable refer to this as, "The Abomination," and that is what it shall forever be known as. As soon as I saw Kellan Quinn was in this, I immediately knew I'd dislike it but man oh man I did not think it would be anywhere near this bad. Even the, OOR members are my friends so I can't critique their product people think this song sucks. I said at the beginning of this that I listened to every song 5 times but that was a lie, I could only listen to this one twice. It's terrible, it's an abomination, it will never grow on me. Think back to junior high, think of the whiniest kid at your school, think of how whiny your younger sibling sounded ratting you out to your parents for something trivial. Perfect, now picture them, in that moment, going through the full effects of puberty in the span of a week, picture how whiny that  person would then be. Having trouble? Just listen to Kellan Quinn in this song as that is exactly what he sounds like. I try to keep my emotions at bay about OOR. It really is hard, I've flown all over the world to see this band and can't put into the words the joy I've felt at those shows. It would be absolutely naive of me to say OOR hasn't shaped parts of my life. The night I met them in Amsterdam was one of the greatest of my life, and the night I saw them with my best friend in LA and Taka remembered me when we met after the show is arguably the greatest night of my life. This album hurts a bit but this song, this fucking song pisses me off. Not even Memories has me so furious, every band has bad songs and bad albums, ONE OK ROCK was bound to have it happen. This album can never change the fact that they've made a ton of fantastic music, more than many bands ever will, but this song is a blemish on their reputation that cannot be ignored. I'll probably look back and read this and shudder, it's an immaturity I can't repress but man, fuck this song. ZERO/10 Good Goodbye: ANYWAYS. I like this song. :-) One of the things that sucks about this album is that all my favorites, MLF, Cry Out and Heartache were already released in some shape or form, so the album ends up appearing worse to me than it really is because I'm having trouble enjoying all the new new songs. Which is why I say, thank goodness for Good Goodbye. I'm not sold on all of it, like the GOOD goodbye part, or the fact that the forefront of the song, the word goodbye, is being spoken as a word he won't say? It's a good song though, simple but not insulting. 8/10