Review Summary: Simple Plan rolls on, in the true spirit of pop punk, really living their life as they want to.
The catchiest and just overall best pop punk of the 2000s was accentuated by Simple Plan. They had the catchiest hooks that were damn near impossible to remove from your head and their pop-oriented appeal allowed them to send a handful of tracks to the Billboard Hot 100. And as the last decade plus played out, and as four, now five, studio albums hit store shelves, nothing really changed about them. Albeit, they didn't need to change. Whatever the group put out was just solid pop punk that was repetitive to some, consistent to others. There really was a simple plan put into place, and on their fifth album, Taking One for the Team, Simple Plan compiles songs that both move them forward and recapture the youth of their 2000s hayday.
Lead off track "Opinion Overload" is a Simple Plan special. Resonating the hallmark of their previous discography, frontman Pierre Bouvier speaks of living life as he pleases, shrugging opinions to the side. Not the freshest and certainly not the best lyrical content in the world, but the song rides on Bouvier's strong vocal performance, and it's hard to argue with the execution. The album as a whole is through and through with the hallmarks of pop punk; romance, rebellion and reminiscence, all of the three presented in equal measure, none of them taking much precedence.
"Perfectly Perfect" could certainly use a better song title. Relative to the actual song, it's your typical pop punk downtrodden ballad with solid enough execution. Nelly's appearance on "I Don't Wanna Go to Bed" sees him throw in "yeah" and "uh-huh" and middle of the road verses, keeping in mind the aforementioned pop appeal. Jordan Pundik of New Found Glory appears on "Farewell" and Juliet Simms contributes guest vocals on "I Dream About You", both songs doing more or less a good job to keep things going at a fairly tight pace.
Far and away, Simple Plan's fifth full-length and first in as many years is yet another celebration of the guitar heavy pop punk that made them one of the most popular Warped Tour laden acts of the 2000s. How you rate the album depends on your tolerance of the consistent tone they've maintained over the last sixteen years. Being a fan in their earlier days might play a bit into my enjoyment of this record, but whether or not you, the reader, can enjoy it is a subjective matter. You'll either laud them for the strong execution or criticize them for being repetitive. Regardless of where your arrow points, Simple Plan will certainly tell you, that the opinions of few will never sway them from the beaten path they've traveled. Try as you might, you'll only poke so many holes in their seemingly impervious façade.
