Review Summary: Hard work pays off?
Emarosa is a band that has stuck with me for many years, and i consider a few of their albums to be straight up classics. I even stuck with them when they changed their sound and many of my friends decided to not listen to them anymore when they went through a stylistic change in 2019 with Peach Club, which this was marketed as a natural follow-up to. The band is now so far removed from the genre they were originally associated with that listening to their early work compared to their recent records feels like night and day. They now lean toward a grandiose pop sound that evokes the feeling of ’80s music—a stark contrast to their early post-hardcore influences. For what it’s worth, they’ve pulled off the transition from emo to pop rather seamlessly, but along the way they’ve also lost much of what made them so special to begin with. With only two remaining members—just one of them from the original lineup—it feels painfully obvious who is pulling the strings, and even his great voice can’t cover up the fact that a band once so dynamic and riff-driven now sounds almost computer-generated to fit in with mainstream radio pop.
Problems arise quickly, with cringe-inducing and questionable choices like the spoken-word segment that opens the album on “The Edge.” The line “Hard work pays off, dreams come true, bad times don't last, but bad guys do…” comes across as pompous and self-serious—I wonder if they’ve completely lost the plot. It feels incredibly out of touch. Strangely, at the same time, Bradley Walden’s vocal performance and delivery almost make up for it.
On “Cherry Coke,” it’s blatantly clear they’re trying to replicate The 1975, from the guitar tone and playing style to the half-electronic programmed drums. Their desire to reach the same heights as Peach Club has been no secret, and on no track is that more apparent than “Good Enough,” where they come closest to replicating the formula of one of their best post-Versus songs, “Cautious.” The chorus is catchy and infectious, and once again Bradley Walden shines—arguably the saving grace of this album.
“Give It Away” continues in a similar vein, and the album starts to pick up some momentum here, feeling more energetic and more like a band than the first two tracks. Even though it doesn’t lack energy, it fails to stick and isn’t as memorable as “Good Enough.” That might be this band’s greatest flaw: they have many of the right ingredients but rarely get it quite right. They come close at times, which only makes it all the more frustrating.
The album takes a nosedive on “Automatic,” which sounds misguided and like a clear misstep. There may be a decent song buried beneath the obnoxious electronic instrumentation, but even the vocal performance becomes grating with its heavy use of falsetto. Thank God it’s under three minutes.
“Shoes” was a single I already disliked, and hearing it in the context of the album doesn’t improve it. The chorus feels like an attempt at a Michael Jackson-style performance, but it comes off as misguided. The guitar work here is also among the album’s weakest moments.
“Sugarcane,” the other single released ahead of the album, didn’t stand out much at the time, but here it feels like a breath of fresh air after the previous tracks. The vocal performance really saves it, and the instrumentation is at least solid.
“Ride” is another short track. I actually kind of like it, though the weathered tape effect on the guitar becomes a bit distracting.
“Moon and Back” encapsulates the tragedy of this album: everything is designed to sound lush and vibrant, but in reality it comes across as stale and uninspired. This feels like a band on its last legs, unwilling to call it quits or move on. Emarosa is now so far removed from what once defined them that it’s baffling they haven’t simply started a new project for this style of music.
The closer, “Nevermind,” leaves the same sour taste. It feels like this has become a band that refuses to call it quits because it’s now just a job—a paycheck—and it shows. The few standout moments, if they can even be called that, get lost in a mess of half-baked ideas and what feels like rushed instrumentation. Bradley Walden sounds fantastic on most of the album, but everything around him falls short. Sadly, this lands in the same category as their last album, Sting: unremarkable and forgettable. In a year already full of great releases, with more still to come, this is one that will likely be forgotten within a week. Very little here sticks.
