Review Summary: Struggling in Real Time
Being a Good pop punk band must be hard, especially when you primarily orbit the ‘pop’ side of the world’s most beloved genre. While it took The Maine a few records to get anywhere truly noteworthy, the band’s mid-2010s stretch from
Forever Halloween to their indisputable opus
Lovely Little Lonely is unmatched within the realm of thoughtfully carefree alternative music. Having perfected the act of balancing ambition and fun, 2019’s
You Are OK unsuccessfully tilted the scales in favour of ambition and saw the band losing much of what made them great. Catchy melodies got buried in the mix; plastic strings added nothing but a reminder that they weren’t necessary or welcome whatsoever. While the brand new
XOXO: From Love and Anxiety in Real Time isn’t a massive improvement, its ridiculous title being the longest thing about the record rather than a completely vapid nine-minute closing track is a moderately good sign.
The record’s two opening cuts instantly signal
XOXO’s wonderfully clean production. Guitars can be felt again; John O’Callaghan’s vocal hooks get an opportunity to shine once more. While the songs’ choruses are genuinely catchy and memorable, The Maine seem to overcompensate for their previous overly ambitious failings by repeating the same melodies over and over… and over. Seriously; ‘Sticky’ manages to fit its nine-line chorus five times in its sub-three minute runtime (you do the maths), shifting from the breezily catchy kind of sticky to the mildly unpleasant, cola-on-my-hands kind of sticky. Nonetheless, finding the band exploring overly memorable territories instead of, you know, the exact opposite is a mostly pleasant change of pace, particularly with ‘Lips’ being a thoroughly enjoyable slice of carefree pop rock.
Sadly, this breath of fresh air quickly turns sour as ‘High Forever’ rears its head. The song is an approximation of what incredibly bombastic radio pop (sigh, yeah, a la Dragons Imaginaire) would sound like if it were edgy and not nearly bombastic enough for shitty advertisements. Is there an audience for this? Is there a car brand #hip enough to allow the lyrics “
We ain’t gonna stay high forever” to play over shots of a shiny vroom vroom machine driving over an even shinier road? Elsewhere, ‘If Your Light Goes Out’ manages to be even worse, attempting to be a hopeful anthem but ending up as little more than a highly inspirational D-tier campfire song for eight-year old boy scouts attempting to reach the top of a 50-meter tall hill. “
I know after all this time I’m gonna make it / I don’t really have the time, no no no”. It’s genuinely sad to hear: The Maine have proved themselves highly capable of crafting heartfelt tracks, no matter how tongue-in-cheek or seemingly immature (see ‘24 Floors’, ‘Taxi’).
Thankfully, like most things in life sometimes maybe,
XOXO gets better. ‘Pretender’ is the band’s best track in quite a few years, injecting the record’s enjoyable pristine production with some much needed energy. It’s hard to understand why The Maine would pump out the aforementioned lumps of coal when they’re clearly able to stick relatively close to their guns and conceive highly memorable and heartfelt tracks like this one. The closing stretch proves equally successful; ‘Anxiety in Real Time’ fuses surprisingly intricate riffs with introspective lyricism and a chorus that exudes tranquility and hope. Similarly, ‘Face Towards the Sun’ balances ambition and joy flourishingly as it shies away from conventional structures in favour of a surprisingly uplifting tale of death and new beginnings, allowing its lyrics to guide the track’s intensity.
While
XOXO is a successful reminder that The Maine are still able to create some of the best pop punk in the current
scene, it also showcases that they’re struggling to assemble consistently excellent albums. Adding pictures of you standing next to your ugly friends may prove successful on Tinder, but placing quality bangers alongside absolutely terrible songs isn’t a great technique when it comes to music. Filter out
XOXO’s best tracks, place them in a couple of summer-y playlists and call it a day.
