#chad gilbert

New Found Glory - Coming Home

One of my favorite 00s pop-punk bands is New Found Glory, but I’ll admit that I haven’t listened to all of their work. There are a lot of bands I love that I haven’t heard their whole discography, but that doesn’t mean you’re any less of a fan. Not everyone has the time to take a deep dive into a band’s entire discography, but I’ve been making my way through it over the last handful of years. There are a handful of their albums I still haven’t listened to, but they’re albums here and there. I haven’t heard their debut, and a couple albums from the 2010s, but one album I hadn’t heard (at least until earlier this week) was 2006’s Coming Home.

This was an album that I knew of, because it was a very divisive album at the time (and maybe still is), but the band changed their sound after 2004’s Catalyst to a more alt-rock and almost classic rock sound. I don’t know why, but they could have been jaded by the pop-punk scene at the time. I’ve been getting into a handful of albums from early 00s pop-punk bands who changed their sound after a few albums, for better or worse, but they ultimately changed their sound back when people weren’t into their new era. Coming Home was one of the albums that I was excited to check out, simply because I love New Found Glory, and and I was curious to hear this one.

Honestly, I quite like this album, and I think it’s an underrated gem in their discography. Granted, this album isn’t perfect, but it’s got a lot to love. Their sound is one thing to enjoy, because it has this mellow and mid-tempo sound that still puts emphasis on hooks and huge choruses. The hooks here are still great, and they’re in line with what we know from the band, but the tempos are slower and they’re bigger and more expansive, versus being tight and fast. Hell, the last track is this epic ballad that features the band Eisley on backing vocals, but it’s a five-minute ballad that swells and crescendos into a beautiful piece, and it’s a welcomed change for the band. The only real downside is that this album is way too long. It’s not a very diverse listen, so the variety becomes overwhelming, but the lack of diversity is the issue.

2009 Hayley Williams dei Paramore è una delle grandi performer di questi ultimi vent’anni. Qui il gruppo era al terzo album, Brand New Eyes, prodotto da Rob Cavallo. The Only Exception è il singolo di maggior successo tratto dal disco, una ballatona che deve più di qualcosa ai Radiohead anni Novanta, forse dedicata da Williams a Chad Gilbert dei New Found Glory. And I’ve always lived like…