Review Summary: The Story So Far: a little bit more grown up, again.
Parker Cannon and co. aren’t going to be turning any new heads with the newest addition to their steadily growing discography. It’s their third time down the full-length course, and they know exactly what the crowd wants: another bite-sized LP with enough morsels of pop punk to keep their fans’ attention for the coming summer. On this, they deliver with the expected consistency and quality that the band has deservedly earned. Cannon still bemoans his ex-lover in swift repartee, Torf’s drumwork is more kinetic than ever, and the string section has worked together on creating massive walls of twangy, explosive sound. The band still fails to live up to the sudden and perfectly timed nature of their debut, but as with “What You Don’t See”, progresses just enough to peak interest, and maintains most of what already works in taut suspension. Unfortunately, their attempts to differentiate this LP from albums prior don’t always come out as intended.
The face of The Story So Far is still Cannon, and Cannon is the best he’s ever been vocally. His voice is relentless, emotionally charged, and even menacing this time around. Grief is his marinade, soaked up by every line he spits out. He has matured and lowered his pitch subtly since the band’s debut, but given his omnipresence, this growth has a drastic effect on the music. As a result, he ensures that the sound of the music is more impassioned and realized as ever. Unfortunately, his omnipresence works to the band’s melodic detriment. His flow is more of a rap than it is singing at this point, and often fails to mesh well with the instrumentals. It splices up the instrumental tightness of the rest of the band as Cannon struggles to create unique and interesting melodies. Most notably the choruses suffer, which frequently end up being repetitive and excessively rhymey, as he can roar the same line melodies with the same inflections up to a dozen times in any given track. Cannon is still an absolute powerhouse, but this is an unfortunate continuation of issues that plagued the last record. The Story So Far’s catchiness and funness is still mostly intact, but as they ditch more definitive pop punk of their earlier years to create a more hardcore, signature sound, they fall further short of the golden standard set by USAD. His lyrical laments, however, are as tight as ever. Still stuck in the same pothole of failed love, the subject matter varies little from Parker publicly flogging himself and whomever wrought his pain. But even on the third go around, Cannon is absolutely astute in his wordplay, which is more a form of forthright poetry than it is lyrics. He’s always discovering new ways to relate the same feelings of desperation and frustration as he tears apart himself and his ex-lover in a flurry of self-degrading lamentations and targeted belligerence.
Each song manages to stay under four minutes, providing brief but explosive satisfaction, meant to be taken one bite at a time. Torf sets a new standard for drumming here, and the clarity of its production helps to make it as thick and satisfying as possible. From the tribalistic intro to “Smile”, to the sludgy drawl that ushers in “Heavy Gloom”, to the docile first verse of “Solo”, he maintains consistent energy and manages to surprise at every turn. The more uneven pacing of the songs are ripe for experimentation in the rhythm department, and protracted feedback loops that draw in and close out many of the tracks give him time to shine as well. Unfortunately, these otherwise interesting loops can become too self-absorbed and lengthy, often feeling unjustified given the intensity and brevity of the individual tracks. In an album that already falls short of half an hour, the several minutes of instrumental bookends feel very much like filler. They do, however, help to craft a more consistent underlying atmosphere in an album that otherwise lacks one. This is experimental for The Story So Far, and is best exemplified in the half-baked “Phantom”. The track is the most spacious that The Story So Far has ever done. It’s delicate and moody, but ends up feeling more like an interlude than a fully developed realization of this characteristic atmosphere. Parker’s refrain “Got me so dark blue” awkwardly and inappropriately cuts off the instrumentals that begin to bloom after the prior line in their entirety; and this occurs several times throughout the track. This cuts up the flow and it’s surprising that a band so on point with tempo in every other regard wouldn’t be able to make Cannon’s lines mesh with such easily flowing instruments. The Story So Far have been notably apt in bringing their signature sound to more stripped back tracks such as “Placeholder”, or acoustic songs like “Navy Blue” and “Clairvoyant”, and it’s disappointing that the one track on the album that attempts this simply fails to deliver. On the other hand, its failure is in the form of execution, but the well developed atmosphere and hunger for experimentation shows that The Story So Far are able to do more than just crunchy pop punk tunes.
The aforementioned atmosphere most affects the fretwork in the album. The crispy pop punk guitars of USAD took a more distorted, wall of sound style on WYDS, and this trend continues here. Power chords expectedly chug along throughout the album, but the leads have become significantly more muddled. Whether this is a fault of production or an attempt to develop the atmosphere further is unknown (e.g. the feedback strung sparsely over the verses in “Scowl” and “Smile”), but it really obscures the phenomenal talent and energy behind the guitar work. Long gone are the memorable and clear riffs from songs like “Swords and Pens”, “High Regard”, and “Framework”. When the guitars are allowed to shine through, mostly on the album’s excellent bridges, they make for some incredibly slick instrumentation. Take the guitar solo on “Heavy Gloom” or the bridge of “Distaste” for example. The whole of “Mock” represents the best of what The Story So Far have to offer at this stage. The guitar tone throughout the track is unique in its uncompromising use of flange, and at one point the bass and drums work together to form a groovy foundation for Parker to harmonize over, a part that ends up being one of the most confidently cool verses on the album. “How You Are” is a massive track that spirals downward into a very settled outro, trained into submission by Torf’s work on the drums. “Heavy Gloom”’s latter verse features some of the most intense and breathless vocal work from Cannon seen at this stage. “Nerve” moves at a breakneck pace, and “Stalemate” features some of the most melodic vocal riffing on the record. These different moments, elements, and the great bridges really do make the album, and save it from the samey vibe of WYDS. The band works again to make each track unique in structure and sound, much more in the vein that they did on the debut.
The numerous gripes detailed only exist because The Story So Far is so rock solid in their foundations that they should be capable making use of these foundations in a better execution. This album did three things that a follow-up album should do: take lessons learned from the failures of previous albums, take the elements of what worked best, and work to implement them into a time appropriate and new sound. Unfortunately in this, the band brought upon themselves a host of different problems, or exacerbated existing ones in their attempts to fix them. But their attempts were limited in the album’s short runtime, and for the most part, The Story So Far stuck to their guns. Each member does exactly what they did before with notable improvements in many regards, and work together to create ten highly volatile works of pop punk expression. Not every element meshes with perfection, but each element knows its place, and we ultimately get The Story So Far doing what The Story So Far does; just with a differently developed luster.
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Stream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLYQhPJrQIlgPumFvrNBtZgLV0xKNEu8B8&v=GP ubeQYvzYk
