Review Summary: Hope you're happy now with the little that you got.
You know what, Simple Plan, I have to ask:
what, exactly, is "harder than it looks"? As in, what are you referring to? Because at no point in this album's ten-track playlist do they drop the album title, so you have to wonder exactly what they're even talking about (assuming you even give a damn in the first place). Is the process of writing music harder than it looks? Is being a band harder than it looks? Is middle-age harder than it looks? Is...
life harder than it looks?? Is it all of the above? Or is it nothing at all and you just picked a cool and catchy-sounding album title?
Nah, just kidding, it's another double entendre. Because that's the one 'unique' thing about Simple Plan that they can always reliably bank on. Their album titles are... frequently sex jokes. Because that's what they've always done, and they absolutely
have to stick to tradition, I guess, even though Simple Plan's legacy is a middling one at best (the What's New Scooby-Doo guys, ooooh). In spite of the fact that you could almost twist this album's title into some weirdly plaintive and almost existentialist musings (i.e. make it
interesting), it does not, in fact, bring anything new to the table whatsoever. This is the same Simple Plan shtick, as flavorless and routine as they come in spite of the band's claim that they "go back to [their] roots and unapologetically embrace [them]" as if they... ever abandoned their roots in the first place?? They sound the same as they always have, and all the usual elements are here in full effect: straightforward, 4/4 pop-punk compositions with steady, often palm-muted verses and big, anthemic choruses, chugging and unpretentious guitar parts, light vocal harmonies, et cetera ad infinitum. It's something they've gotten down to a pro-forma science by this point, it's a formula they've never veered away from, and it's exactly why they've been forgotten about over time. Because who cares about the merely competent when you could instead fixate on the spectacular?
"Wake Me Up (When This Nightmare's Over)" is harmless pop-rock that probably sounds exactly like what you're imagining at this moment, "Million Pictures of You" ditches its' synth-laden intro to instead coast on a ripoff of "All the Small Things", and if you put a gun to my head and asked me to identify a difference between "Ruin My Life" and "Antidote", you'd have no choice but to shoot me in the head. "Congratulations" is vaguely catchy, I suppose, with its palm-muted verses and big, anthemic chorus-- f*ck, I already said that, never mind. The slick, minor-key verses of "Anxiety" almost sound like a decent sequel to Maroon 5's "Tangled" before the
god-awful "getawaygetawaygetaway from meee" hook comes swinging in like a sudden headache, "Two" is an overwrought, eyeroll-inducing bit of emo-ish rock, and my God, it's so
difficult to describe what makes these songs unique and discrete, you have no idea. You could say it's harder than it looks!
I could end the review on that monumentally epic roast, but honestly, it's so by-the-books and mediocre that it doesn't even deserve such a verbal smackdown. Like, I guess the album's alright at times? "Best Day Of My Life" is a fast, vaguely charming, utterly cheesy Offspring pastiche, "Iconic" is a fun fusion of guitars, gang chants, and horns with a late-game Fall Out Boy vibe throughout, and the obvious-standout song, "Slow Motion", has the most genuine, rollicking energy on the entire album, a surprisingly decent and convincing combination of 80's synths and pop punk. But, like, the only reason these particular highlights stand out are because they (just barely) manage to clear the bar of 'above average'. It's a factory-made, regulation-ready pop punk record, so basic and unpretentious that it might as well be the basic pop-punk
template.
Harder Than It Looks is the audio personification of a white kid that goes to an open mic, fiddling around with an acoustic singing Ed Sheeran for about 35 minutes before leaving. Harmless, easy to put in the background, and already forgotten about.
