Review Summary: So this is pop punk.
There are two sides to yours truly. One is the quiet, philosophical brooder, who can usually be found leafing through old paperbacks in a room where Richter quietly leaks from the speakers, occasionally muttering or chuckling to himself as if he were a guy who just received a degree in pretentious nobbery. The other is the rowdy, brainless, eighteen (twelve) year old who takes pride in his ability to finish first place in round of pub golf despite the fact it causes him to run naked down a busy street, pass out in the middle of a roundabout in front of a police car, and end up in a cell overnight for being drunk and disorderly (I was fine, seriously). Now, there’s nothing wrong with the first guy. He’s great, may take himself a tad seriously, but on the whole a decent fella. It’s the second guy, though, the jack-and-coke’d up drunk that loves to set the dance floor alight with his "blazin sandals", the bastard that listens to trite, cookie-cutter pop-punk bands like ‘The Status’, that’s the guy who people fall in love with. And I hate him.
He’s the guy that, when let loose, releases all my guilty pleasures to the public. My unhealthy obsession with running at blistering speeds, my totally sane lust for Jodie Foster, my odd fascination with fingers, and, worst of all, my embarrassing love for shi
tty, mindless pop punk. Oh, how I loathe him. But oh, how I need him. How else would I release all my pent up fears and frustrations? Modest Mouse, Converge, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, painfully emotive bands, but they tend to the immediate needs of Matt Wolfe. They take my internal pains and pressures and soothe them, enflame them, whatever is needed at that moment in time. They don’t, however, release them. A spontaneous burst of pop punk will do that for me. For a short time at least. They transform me from myself into someone else, free from the pressures of every day, free to act like a dickhead, free to dress up in tights for the sake of a reason I can’t remember. Pop punk makes me feel young. As does falling flat on my face after trying to be the first man to reach one hundred miles per hour on his feet, but the point stands.
The Status are one of those bands who can claim to have saved my life. But then again they are also one of those bands who can claim to have ruined it. As with every high, there is also a low, and, for this, pop punk is a serial offender. Saying that, some bands have added a special ingredient which has destroyed (or at least dampened) this low. Say Anything, Blink 182, Fall Out Boy (I don’t care what you say, I still listen to From Under The Cork Tree). The Status, however, are not one of these bands. As soon as
So This Is Progress had around four or five runs through, they began to drain me, grate on me. The honeymoon period, as they call it, was great. From the infectious and powerful opener ‘Get Back on Your Feet’ to the quieter, melancholy closer ‘I Was Sinking’, The Status pull every punch they know and land them convincingly. But by the 5th round they’ve let themselves become figured out entirely and end up just swinging at thin air. The listener becomes tired of seeing the same moves over and over, with no attempt to mix things up. No interesting surprises, no subtle nuances, nothing of any noteworthy value whatsoever.
It’s cookie-cutter pop punk in every form of the word. It tastes sweet to begin with, but you can only take so much before it makes you want to hurl. Remember Boys Like Girls? I’ll give you a minute to check your iTunes… Ok? Yeah, well if you liked that for a couple days, like I did, then you may very well find a decent fix in The Status. But just like
Boys Like Girls,
So This Is Progress will only provide you with that high for a very short amount of time. The more you try it, the worse it gets, and the more you want to go cold turkey on it altogether. I’d describe the band more but you know very well who the Status are; they are the band who make you feel eleven for a couple hours, the band who cause you to forget whatever responsibilities you have at that time, only to reverse and magnify these effects with anything close to extended listening. What I’m trying to say is this: Give this a couple spins, it will put a smile on your face (at least an incredulous one) for a while, maybe even roll back the years, just don’t expect it to do anything more but make you feel ill.
And look at that, I went the entire review without mentioning that horrendous album art.
