Review Summary: Let the end result be an afterthought.
There are a lot of bands who get better as they go, and there are a lot of bands that peak early and spend years declining. There are some bands that are consistently bad, a ton that are consistently decent, and a rare few that are consistently brilliant. There are an even rarer few, however, where you never seem to know what’s going to come next. The kind of band that’s always teetering on the edge of glorious highs or crushing lows, that’s always shifting between innovatively brilliant and unbearably dull—and sitting smack in the middle of that bizarre niche is a band called Four Year Strong.
You see, Four Year Strong is the kind of band that—
Actually forget it;
analysis paralysis is not actually worth getting into a whole dissertation about concerning the past quality of Four Year Strong’s music. That’s right—despite the fact that
analysis paralysis contains what are arguably some of the band’s best riffs and nastiest breakdowns, the rest of the album is something that left a bit more to be desired than what I expected.
In fact, let me be extremely clear—if Four Year Strong had dropped an EP containing “aftermath/afterthought,” “daddy of mine,” “paranoia” and “bad habit” it would be in the upper echelon of their long and storied discography. These songs decidedly lean into Four Year Strong’s heavier side, with “daddy of mine” probably being one of the heaviest songs they’ve ever written. It’s not just the fact that they’re heavy though—these tracks are all energetic, emotional, raw and all of the things that you want to hear in a Four Year Strong song.
The breakdown in “aftermath/afterthought” is an instant crowd-pleaser, while the guttural screaming and riffing in “daddy of mine” careens into a sing-along type chorus. Meanwhile the riffing in “bad habit” and “paranoia” are some of the more memorable guitar lines that Alan Day and Dan O’Connor have written, with the ending of the latter being one of the more memorably crazy moments on the record.
Unfortunately four songs are not enough to save an album, and the rest of the album is a homogenous, on-cruise-control collection of “classic” but boring Four Year Strong. The case in point (and worst offender) is “dead end friends,” which tries to redeem it’s almost unbearably slow pace and bland instrumentals with a hook that feels more forced than anything else. While I’ve highlighted the worst of it, the rest of the album doesn’t exactly fare a whole lot better. Don’t get me wrong, it isn’t offensive or terrible—it’s just totally unmemorable.
I can appreciate the fact that when Four Year Strong decided to go heavy in this particular outing, they went for it. The approach succeeded. Those aforementioned tracks are not only a blast but are the diamonds in the sand that is
analysis paralysis. Furthermore, the album is relatively short—clocking in at thirty-five minutes, which creates the illusion of the album moving at a brisker pace than it actually does.
Look, I’ve loved Four Year Strong for years, but the reality is that their discography has not always been the most consistent—and pure objectivity is overriding my desire to get a kick out of this album. Maybe I’m just too old for it now, but the peaks simply do not compensate for the valleys in
analysis paralysis, which is a shame—because I wanted to like this album. So in the end, other than throwing some fun tunes on a playlist, the aftermath of this album is an afterthought.
