#jamies elsewhere

Yellowcard - Childhood Eyes / Jamie's Elsewhere - Paradise EP

This past Friday, two projects were released at the same moment, both being ultimately different, but very similar in a lot of ways. If you're thinking this is going to be a review of Barbenheimer, you're sorely mistaken, but in all seriousness, two bands from the "alternative" world dropped a comeback EP on the same day, and they're both worth listening to and talking about if you're familiar with these bands or that scene in particular. Those two bands in particular are the pop-punk pioneers Yellowcard with their newest EP, Childhood Eyes, and post-hardcore underdogs Jamie's Elsewhere with their Paradise EP. Both of these bands are rather different, whether it's their sound or their influence in their genres, but it's a big deal that they're both back.

I want this piece to be less of a "review," and more or less on what it means for the alternative scene that they're back. The thing is, both of these EPs are really good, and despite them both having different sounds, they have a lot more in common than you'd otherwise think. Both of these bands were beloved in their scenes, and they bowed out around a decade ago, although the reasons are a bit different. Frontman of Jamie's Elsewhere Aaron Pauley stepped away due to becoming the bassist (and eventual frontman) of some band called Of Mice & Men. I don't know, I think they're a big deal in the metalcore world, but who knows? These are also both EPs, which is kind of weird, but it means to drop EPs instead of a full length, as they're smaller teasers of what kind of new material they have.

I could go on about these EPs, but in reality, they're both very good and that's all you need to know before listening to them. They're essentially modernized versions of what people loved about each band. Yellowcard's brand of violin-infused pop-punk sounds oddly fresh in 2023, and Jamie's Elsewhere's brand of electronic-heavy and experimental post-hardcore feels very ahead of its time in 2023, but they don't feel as though they're pandering to fans, really just picking up where they left off. That's what I wanted to talk about with this piece, at least the overarching idea, because 2023 has been a year where bands that haven't released material in a long time are releasing either some of their best material (here's looking at you, Fall Out Boy), or a genuinely great album to add to their already solid body of work (obligatory mention of Paramore). These EPs would fit into the latter category, but the quality doesn't matter as much as the meaning behind them.

I'm not a diehard fan of either one of these bands, so I could sit here and critique these EPs, because I don't have any personal or nostalgic attachments to them (I did listen to Jamie's Elsewhere a lot in high school, but not religiously), but what's the point of that? I wanted to talk about these records in some way, because I like them a lot, and I wanted to add something to the conversation. I think there's something to be said about these two bands returning after so many years, and being welcomed with open eyes (and open ears).

It's something special when a band you love returns after so many years, and it feels like nothing's changed, despite how you've all grown up. That's how I felt with the new Fall Out Boy record, So Much (For) Stardust, earlier this year. Despite them being gone for five years, and myself being a fan for the past fifteen, Stardust is a fantastic album that isn't a return to form, per se, but it's still a showcase of their creativity and maturity as a band and a group of guys. I don't have that same attachment to Jamie's Elsewhere or Yellowcard, so I wanted to extend an invitation to someone who does. My buddy Jake just put out a retrospective on Yellowcard's Ocean Avenue, because its 20th anniversary was a day after Childhood Eyes' release, and I felt as though it wouldn't be right to talk about that EP in particular without bringing along who has that sense of nostalgia and attachment to the band, ultimately asking what this EP means to him and what the band coming back now represents.

He writes, and I quote, "It's actually really fitting that this new Yellowcard EP came out a day before the 20th anniversary of Ocean Avenue, because when I first listened to it, Childhood Eyes gave me a lost of similarly warm and fuzzy feelings that I felt all those years ago listening to Ocean Avenue, but in a fresh way for someone who has grown up with them in those 20 years. What I think really works about this EP is that, cliche as this term might be, it's a more mature, updated version of Yellowcard that grew up along with their fanbase who fell in love with them all of those years ago. The sound itself isn't radically different (in fact, the band themselves has said as much), but they didn't take the easy way out and try to capture the exact magic of 20 years ago like a lot of bands unfortunately do (looking at you, 2010's Green Day). And this is all after what everyone thought was a final, self-titled album in 2016 and permanent breakup; to have them come back in this way, capturing that same magic in 2003, and really their entire career afterwards, is really special, and this EP really couldn't have come out at a better time."