While most of my coverage for The Memory Tourist has been more conventional pop and Broadway, I think it’s important to know something about me. In the early 2000s, I grew up on a healthy diet of pop-punk. While I have talked about it at points on here, I feel like it has been a footnote to how I am perceived. On one hand, it says a lot about who I’ve become in the 10+ years since I graduated high school, but it only makes those records that I’m not quite embarrassed about yet all the more endearing.
New Found Glory is one of those pivotal bands, defining pop-punk of the era with the best of them. If you had to ask me, “Sticks and Stones” was one of those pivotal albums, where this delightful mix of catchy melodies and an upbeat sense of humor just drew me to a band. Their 2002 hit “My Friend’s Over You” felt inescapable, and for a time it felt like they would be one of the best bands in the world. After all, they collaborated with the likes of Mark Hoppus (Blink-182) and would later tour with Green Day during their American Idiot Tour. There’s so much that still makes them feel warm and fuzzy.
That is why it’s interesting to come to this week and see that their 10th album, “Forever + Ever x Infinity” isn’t on my writing assignments list. I don’t actually hate the band. The last album of theirs that I listened to (“Coming Home”) was one that hit me at the right time. For some reason, I just never cared to continue the journey. I probably will give it a listen, but I am just as curious to hear the new Phantom Planet album. At a certain point, I’m going for records that I feel like I could get a lot of substance out of, and a band who’s been gone 12 years sounds like a better fit.
Though I didn’t want to go this week without mentioning New Found Glory, even if I wasn’t exactly sure how I would do it. Do I cover an album that I’ve never listened to, or do I go on at length about any of their big ones?
What I discovered is that I have varying emotions about the four central albums that I listened to the most. From there I decided to go with the one that I have always been the most iffy about.
Given my love of “Sticks and Stones,” there is good reason to argue that “Catalyst” was a disappointing record. On one hand, I’ve listened to it enough to erase any shred of doubt, but there is still something off about the record when compared to every other hit. Whereas “New Found Glory” and “Sticks and Stones” were these fun breakthrough records, “Catalyst” was sold as something more experimental, like a turning point following their most successful period. Their videos were on MTV and their profile would never be this big again. How do you follow up such gravitas?
According to drummer Cyrus Bolooki:
"A catalyst is something that can spark change or help bring about change without actually being changed by the reaction itself."
In a nutshell, that was it. This was going to be a change of pace from what we knew about New Found Glory. Having originated their careers in the hardcore punk scene, they wanted to put more emphasis on their roots. They did everything to not make a clean record full of the familiar pop hooks. They were going to be bolder than ever before…
…and things all kicked off with “All Downhill From Here.”
It was a nice cheeky joke and one that was packed to the gills with their intended sound. The guitars were crunchy, distorted, where singer Jordan Pundik's voice would be overwhelmed at times by the guitars. The drums pounding over the bridge as fast as things can get. Even with all of this energy, they couldn’t deny what made them special with a catchy chorus that once again established the mission statement:
Catalyst, you insist to pull me downYou contradict the fact that you still want me aroundAnd it’s all downhill from here
“Catalyst” as an album would be nothing but a whole pile of contradictions. It was clear that the band was equally inspired to play against expectations as they were to give in to what had worked before. It’s why portions of “All Downhill From Here” could find beauty under the nasty guitars, fluttering away before the heavy sound picked back up. There’d be yelling, harmonies, and an incredible cavalcade of sound. By the breakdown, it’s got a messy charm that unfortunately is reminiscent of the remainder of the album.
Okay, this is where I get to be a square for a bit. I will fully admit that outside of Sum-41’s “Does This Look Infected?” and “Chuck,” I am not exactly one to play these loud and aggressive records. That is not how I’m built. While I overstate its presence on “Catalyst,” I do notice its presence on the majority of songs in such a way that I feel just doesn’t work.
Songs like “Your Biggest Mistake” feel rushed. Also while I like Pundik as a vocalist, he is lost in the web of sound on these songs. The more that he tries to keep up, the more overwhelmed he feels by the whole thing. I get that sometimes the harmonized screaming is for impact, but it feels especially corny on “I’d Kill To Fall Asleep.” As a piece of music theory, it makes sense as this overwhelming inability to be at rest, but it just sounds goofy.
Which isn’t to say that this is always a bad record, or that the songs I criticize are necessarily dispensable. I definitely think that New Found Glory has put in a lot of effort to make this record singular in their bigger career. As a lyrical catalyst, this album is rich with love songs that have a darker undertone. It’s one that is looking at the push and pulls of these relationships and asking what value they’re serving to each other. If you’ve heard one pop-punk song about a break-up, you’ve heard them all.
Which isn’t to say that they don’t work here. The single “Failure’s Not Flattering” is one of the most enjoyable songs to fly right out of the gate. It may also be because of its use of piano, helping to layer their sound in ways that could be compelling. Again, it’s critiquing how obsessed we are on flaws, doing everything to attack those who can’t be loving and open to each other. You get the sense that Pundik or someone from the band had a terrible falling out around this time and would proceed to attack their ex for most of these songs.
It comes up repeatedly in the images, most notably in “At Least I’m Known For Something” where he sings “You must not have a heart, have nothing in your chest.” Considering that other songs have titles like “This Disaster,” “Ending in Tragedy,” “Failure’s Not Flattering,” and “At Least I’m Known for Something,” you get a sense that this album more than anything is full of passive-aggressive energy. There’s nothing wrong with a break-up album, though Pundik doesn’t quite have a nuance to his voice that makes you buy into his anger.
With that said, “At Least I’m Known For Something” does have one of my favorite lyrics from any song ever:
I've figured out my situationI am an endless source of useless information
The crazy part is that while the heavy guitar threatens to overpower songs like “Truth of My Youth,” there is an oddly tender side to them. As much as the album could be praised for its aggressive shifts in sound, songs like “I Don’t Wanna Know” find them experimenting with orchestral sounds. They’re quieter, more optimistic songs that reflect the love songs they were likely to explore on “Coming Home” in two years.
It may explain why the song is one of the best. There is a focus on everything and even the accompanying vocals harmonize beautifully. I’m not saying that the band should’ve shifted their sound entirely to balladeer territory. As Chad Gilbert would later say about “Coming Home,” he wishes that the album had more balls. It was too much of a departure from the sound that their fans had come to love from them.
With that said, I know that there could be a balance of heavier sound with a pop vibe. It comes on “No News Is Good News,” which is the most conventionally formed New Found Glory song on the album. Having also been featured on the Rock Against Bush compilation that protested the George W. Bush Administration, it was one of the few times that they spoke of something more “important.” While it works as this catchy song, Pundik still sounds like he’s smiling through the whole thing. Then again, the upbeat sound keeps it from being too discordant.
If there’s anything that makes “Catalyst” a worthwhile album, it’s what all experimental albums share. It’s this sense of shifting direction, where professionals throw out ideas that they clearly haven’t honed. They’re able to have a polished feel while having the potential to sound off. Underneath every song here, you can hear New Found Glory as they had been over the previous five years. You also hear them looking at what their future held. As far as I can tell, they’ve done a bit of each since.
It’s a fast record, a sentimental record, even one of their most dark and brooding. All of the cynicism should be clear from “Intro” where they take on faux-punk culture while yelling “Don’t believe a word they say.” There is already this rebellion against something that is cryptic throughout the album but makes sense as a mission statement. It’s what we tell young people in order to give them faith, an independent identity that keeps the fire alive. It’s thrilling, even if “Intro” is crammed with so much rattling ideas that it encapsulates my anxieties with this album in less than a minute.
In 2016, guitarist Chad Gilbert ranked his band’s eight albums. When asked why he ranked “Catalyst” in seventh place:
"So for me personally, Catalyst is all over the place. I think what happened was after the success of Sticks and Stones we were lumped in with a lot of poppy bands and that was weird for us because we came from a hardcore punk rock background, then after we had some commercial success all of a sudden we were ‘poppy’, so we set out to prove otherwise. We had this sort of rebellious feeling that we could write anything, which is why I think it’s all over the place. Like I said, I think some of our best songs are on that record, but the record as a whole is number seven for me."
To be totally honest, “Catalyst” still works as a good album from my perspective. Even if I’m not entirely a fan of how most of their songs lack a rhyming structure, their melodies still have moments that spark interesting ideas. It’s a record that wears its flaws proudly, and that is just as endearing as it is frustrating. This is by no means an awful record (though the artwork continues to baffle me), but it’s just lacking what I personally look for in a great record. It’s a blip of sorts, though one that never leaves you without something to think about.
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| Fun Fact: I was at this show |
Then again, I may just like it because I saw New Found Glory open for Green Day on the American Idiot Tour in 2004 (along with Sugarcult). That was one of those moments you can’t appreciate unless you were a teen experiencing that wave of pop-punk fully. It was a time when it transcended the mainstream in just the right ways, making you believe that it would last forever. But alas, few of those bands are putting out any good music lately. Sure they are sticking true to their passion, but it’s amazing how massively the genre changed in 16 years.
Who knows how I’ll think of “Forever + Ever x Infinity.” From what I’ve been hearing, it’s going to be one of the fun ones. Maybe it will inspire me to fill in the gaps, listen to the other handful of records that I missed. After all, I think that their ability to remain endearing and headstrong for a near 25 years says something about their integrity. Also, if I’m able to appreciate them at their most wildly uneven, what’s stopping me from appreciating them when they don’t have a global stage to impress and are just having fun?
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