Review Summary: This EP has everything your favorite pop punk album should have.
Now this one is sure to earn me a few nasty remarks (maybe threats?) around here, but for me, this EP is a classic. Sure, I thoroughly enjoyed the last Agalloch album and R Plus Seven is in the running for my album of the year but I’ve always had a (very large) soft spot for quality pop punk, especially All Time Low. If you haven’t heard this before, don’t immediately write it off because of the name and the countless bra-slinging fan girls associated with it. Why? Because it’s good pop-punk. There’s really nothing you could say about Put Up Or Shut Up that you couldn’t say about any Yellowcard or Blink-182 album.
As cliche and expected of me it is to say that Put Up Or Shut Up soundtracked the summers of my youth, it did. So, it really is impossible for me to write objectively about it. The only thing I can really do is try to explain why it can still bring back those feelings or preteen angst or summer or other sappy bull*** that you’re supposed to associate with the music.
By no means is this a musically complex album, but that’s expected. Lyrically, the themes and ideas aren’t original and are hardly mature at all, but that’s also expected. The best way to look at Put Up Or Shut Up or any other All Time Low album is not through the lens with which you look at the music of The National or Boards of Canada, but through the lens of summer-y, poppy pop-punk. When you’re expecting and accepting of the moderately boring musicianship and the youth-oriented lyrics, this EP is nearly perfect. The 7 tracks on it are catchy as all hell and the melodies that the band employs are some of the best in the genre. This EP has everything your favorite pop punk album should have: Huge sing-a-long choruses, palm muted verses, songs about girls and staying young, a guitar solo or two, and a few breakdowns. Put Up Or Shut Up takes the pop-punk formula and essentially perfects it.
Finally, I really just want to reason with all of the people that have blind hate towards this EP or All Time Low in general. Sure, it does have a lot of nostalgic value for me which always helps, but these guys must have done something right here if I still jam this as hard as I do 7 years and 5 Godspeed You! Black Emperor vinyls purchases later.
