I live in Oklahoma where not many bands are known of nationally other than country singers. Because of that I always get excited when I find out a band from Oklahoma signs to a major label. That band I’m talking about is obviously The All-American Rejects and when I heard their first single from the self-titled album I was interested to see what the rest of it was like. So when I finally bought it I was horridly disgusted by what I heard. With bland singing from Tyson Ritter and all around samey, boring songs that were somewhat catchy, but at the same time boring as hell. My thoughts on it were that album was that it was a huge disappointment to me and deserved a 1.5/5. All of this leads to the bands second album Move Along.
When I first heard the single, Dirty Little Secret, I thought that it was an okay song, but that there was no chance I was going to buy that album. This guy I know who loved the bands first one said he didn’t think Move Along was as good as the first album which made me wonder which way that would go for me. Being either a disaster of an album or a massive improvement. Then a few days later I saw it on sale at Target for only $5.98 and since there were twelve songs on it. I figured, why not get it at such a low price? After listening to the album a couple of times I realized that this was a complete turnaround for this band. Move Along is sounds more original (at least as original as you get with pop-punk at least) and even in one part has a cool little Spanish, acoustic guitar part. I still sadly think though that there are much better bands for this genre of music.
I must say though, that while Tyson’s voice is improved on this, it can get
EXTreamly annoying throughout the entire album. I think that one of the other members should start doing backup vocals in the music instead of Tyson doing his own backup vocals. The lyrics are well written this time around which is evident on songs such as Change You Mind. As for the instruments, they are generally an overall improvement as well. The bass won’t always follow the guitar and will branch out to it’s own sometimes. The guitars are your general power chord, but it is a lot better than their futile attempt of soloing on Swing Swing from their last album. The drums are always simple, but hold everything together really well. Also, there is a lot of piano, which is enjoyable and fits well with each song it appears on. Another significant difference is that this album is one hundred times catchier than the Rejects debut album, with many of the songs having hook after hook. Finally, I must say that the production is so much better on this and is much more audable and sounds clearer than the first album did.
Key Tracks
It Ends Tonight
Change Your Mind
Night Drive
Can’t Take It
Pros:
+There isn’t a bad song on this
+The catchiest album I have ever listened to
Cons:
-Catchy isn’t always good
-Lack of originality
-Tyson Ritter’s voice can get annoying
Overall this is a massive improvement for AAR, it is a catchy album that is better than most other pop-punk bands. Musically this is nothing new or revolutionary, but it is a strong album throughout. Compared to their first album this is an easy 4 out of 5, but I will ignore their first album and just rate this a 3.5 out of 5. If you thought this review was well written please vote yes and don’t vote no just because you disagree with what I thought of the album. Leave comments on what you thought of the album also. Thanks.
