Review Summary: Being unpopular in high school never sounded so cool.
Oh, high school. With only a semester left, I'm excited to leave this hormone-infested place. However, I know that I'll be wishing to be back soon enough, for it is this same hormone-infested place that made me the person I am. Somewhere in the middle of the “popular/unpopular” spectrum that everyone seems to pine for in high school is my group of friends, who enjoy getting together in a basement, playing Dr. Mario, and listening to the likes of Front Bottoms, Wonder Years, and most recently, Modern Baseball. Why Modern Baseball? It's because these songs have the sound of people who went through these times not too long ago. A handful of these songs – and just about all of the songs on Sports – sound like they were written in a basement while drinking beer on a Saturday night with a few friends.
The main theme of You're Gonna Miss It All seems to be maturation. They've limited their social media references that were constant – almost gimmicky – on Sports to one sole Instagram reference in the opening track. If you scoffed through tracks from Sports like “@chl03k” but nodded along to "The Weekend", there's a lot to love here. “Apartment” is a perfect example of this sense of maturity. This is a track that still has the odd-ball lyrics and feel found on Sports while moving forward with their instrumentation, making the song feel more structured and refined. The lyrics have become less cynical and a lot more observant and self-aware. “I hate worrying about the future because all my current problems are based around the past” opens the whole album perfectly on the track “Fine, Great”. Another step in the right direction is with their choruses. Choruses found in the emo-drentched “Charlie Black” and single “Your Graduation” skyrocket the band's sound to new levels that Sports never came close to.
Although these advances do a lot for the album as a whole, You're Gonna Miss It All still suffers from the same thing that Sports did, and that's consistency. Although the consistency issues are much less apparent here than they were on Sports, there are still tracks on here that you can't help but shrug to. This is due to the short length and the seemingly lack of reason for them to be here. “Notes” is one of the better songs musically here, giving a swing vibe that makes way for some very effective, atmospheric breaks, but is ultimately uninteresting lyrically. “Timmy Borrows” doesn't serve much purpose other than a "moodier" 2-minute version of the post-chorus from “Charlie Black”, and closer “Pothole” ends the album more with a soft-rock whimper than the emo-alt-acoustic-punk bang that it warrants from tracks such as “Rock Bottom” and “Broken Cash Machine”.
Ultimately, Modern Baseball shows some considerable strides in maturity both lyrically and musically. While tracks like “Apartment” and “Fine, Great” move the sound and feel of Sports forward, “Charlie Black” and the positively Front Bottoms-y “Two Good Things” show them experimenting with different sounds, with great results. Even if they still have consistency issues to work out, You're Gonna Miss It All is an improvement on Sports and shows them taking plenty of steps in the right direction.
