The Wonder Years - The Greatest Generation review

The Wonder Years are back with their eagerly awaited fourth album. The Greatest Generation follows on from the band's most successful album ‘Suburbia: I’ve Given You All and Now I’m Nothing’

The album starts with the impressive ‘There, There’ - a soft opening develops into a mild introduction of the instruments. The mid to the end of the song produces a mix of passionate vocals from Dan Campbell and hard drum beats. The second track ‘Passing Through A Screen Door’ was the first single released from the album and is typical Wonder Years style, fast instrumentation and raw strong vocals from Dan Campbell. At the end of the track Soupy talks about how different the lives are of the people he graduated with.

‘We Could Die Like This’ is another fast one, very similar in nature to songs on the previous two albums released by The Wonder Years. Again the drum and guitar combination is impressive and blends well with the vocals, which makes this track especially catchy particularly in the chorus. The hook ‘I wanna die in the suburbs’ adds to the contagious nature of this song.

‘Dismantling Summer’ has been described by others as the best The Wonder Years song ever written; well it’s certainly one of the best. Again, superb chemistry between the instrumentation and the vocals creates another infectious number; this track reminds me a lot of the previous album which had a number of similarly catchy tracks. I would go as far as saying the chorus is possibly the best The Wonder Years chorus I have heard in their discography.

‘The Bastards, The Vultures, The Wolves’ again is a fast number, again a great combination of raw and softer vocals throughout. Again the riff is very potent, there is also a religious element in this song with the lyric ‘I’m waking up to gospel radio’ this follows on the number of religious elements that appeared in some songs in the ‘Suburbia’ album. ‘The Devil in My Bloodstream’ is something completely new from The Wonder Years, the song has a piano introduction and a combination of Soupy and Laura Stevenson, the song has an unexpected explosion midway through with a sudden vocal burst from Soupy and the introduction of the guitars and drums, this continues throughout to the end of the song, a hugely impressive track.

‘Teenage Parents’ is a much faster track, it is one of my favourite tracks on the album as it reminds me of the first few releases of The Wonder Years because of its style, I also enjoy the drum patterns used in this track. ‘Chaser’ is one of the less frantic numbers on the album; it is much more straightforward and contains a number of hooks which maintains the catchy nature of the album. ‘An American Religion (FSF) begins with an interesting riff, fast drum beats and flowing vocals. It is another catchy track with the frequent hook ‘Does that make you happy’ it is also nice to hear Josh Martin’s vocals being incorporated into the album. ‘A Raindance in Traffic’ again is a fast number, this track features a number of ‘woah oh’s’ combined with Soupy’s ever aggressive vocals and potent drum beats.

‘Madelyn’ is the only acoustic track on the album, and brings an interesting change to the album. The vocals sound distant in this track which adds something new, this track will undoubtedly draw comparisons to ‘Hey Thanks’ but the maturity and development in Soupy’s vocals can be heard in comparison to the naive vocals in ‘Hey Thanks’.

‘Cul-de-sac’ returns the fast nature of this album; the drum patterns and almost high vocals are impressive in this song. Soupy’s vocals are superbly consistent throughout the album and even with the high notes in this song, he excels. ‘I Just Want to Sell Out My Funeral’ is the concluding track on the album and the longest track on the album. The lyrics are sung very strongly in this track; the addition of other vocals is also a pleasant one and keeps adding new things to the album, as the track progresses Soupy’s vocals get even stronger. The ending of the song features lyrics taken from a number of songs on the album combined into a sort of medley to finish the album, very appropriate seeing as they used four of the best songs on the album to create the medley.

Another impressive and brilliantly consistent album from this band, another reason why they are considered to one of or the best pop punk bands in the world in recent times.