Homesick

Ready, set, sing some pop-punk verses and bring in the… metal? A Day To Remember’s Homesick album is just as confused as their style or attempt at a this so called pop-punk metal genre. A band that starts the album off with a song called The Downfall of Us All that includes some repeated tones and goes into a typical hardcore scream can only be confused when they throw some soft songs in the mix such as the song Have Faith in Me and If It Means a Lot to You.  The repeated melodies, fast drums and predictable sing-a-long verses makes this nearly as bad as Rebecca Black’s song Friday to get out of your head, if not worse since it’s to the tune of Jeremy McKinnon’s vocals. The lack of progression in the band’s creativity since the first two albums towards songwriting is repulsive and hardly understandable as some of the hardcore metal sung verses. However much, if at all, entertaining, catchy and honest this album is to some, it’s not because of the talent. ADTR fans who like the style will think this is just another album to die for, while the rest of the people that aren’t them would consider this an inconvenience and a loss of their time to listen to it. As far as the album title is concerned, that’s one thing they made easy to associate with the album. Homesick is named after a track on the album and it ties all the tracks together by identifying the theme about being on the road. Coincidentally, the stress of being on the road is what made Tom Denney leave the band after this album, although it can be argued that he jumped ship before it sank. This album didn’t even hit top 20 on Billboard’s Top 200. Songs like NJ Legion Iced Tea make me believe that without further question. It starts off sounding like something Fall Out Boy would write except with less musical talent. Creativity isn’t far behind as far as lacking is concerned. They further demonstrated this by naming the song I’m Made of Wax, Larry, What Are You Made Of? after a line in the children’s movie A Night In the Museum. Certainly the track has no relations to anything about it after that. You Already Know What You Are is a song that nearly every listener would be tempted to just hit skip after the first 3 words since they’re hardly even recognizable as words in the first place. As the album goes on and tracks keep playing, they start to blend together and you no longer know if you’re in the middle of a track or at the start of a new one. However, if you manage to make it to the album’s shocking mellow ending track If It Means A lot To You the last few verses of “La La La La La La La…” are suitable to describe and conclude the album, that’s if you’re still attempting to distinguish what’s going on.