State Champs – Around the World and Back
Reviewed By: Ethan Carney
Rating: 6.5/10
Do you like pizza? Do you enjoy spending time with your friends? Are you in a love/hate relationship with your hometown? If you answered yes to all of these questions then pop punk music is the perfect genre for you! Pop punk is a genre of music that can be characterized by the blending of more upbeat and driven guitars with more downtrodden lyrics or punk themes. Pop punk gained a lot of traction in the early 2000’s with bands like Blink-182, New Found Glory, and Fall Out Boy being popular and getting radio play. The genre continues today with bands like Modern Baseball, Motion City Soundtrack, and State Champs. For a genre that’s been going for so long, not very much has changed in the way that new bands sound. The latest album from State Champs, Around the World and Back, follows the same formulas.
State Champs is a five man pop punk affair and Around the World and Back is their sophomore effort as far as full length albums go. The first half of this album if filled with the typical plethora of songs about breakups and missteps in relationships that are common for bands in this genre. State Champs aren’t making any crazy or bold statements in these songs. Tracks like the opener “Eyes Closed” and the following track “Secrets” don’t do the album any favors to set it apart from all the other pop punk acts on the scene right now.
The stereotypes that I mentioned earlier aren’t just stereotypes when they are constantly ringing true as topics brought up in songs by bands in the genre. Pizza, friends, breakups, and wanting to leave your hometown are staples of pop punk and every band has a least one track addressing the topic or topics. As a whole, I’m fine with this as long as the band manages to do something different with their version of the same old thing. State Champs manage to do this for me with their fourth track “All You Are Is History”. While it is dealing with a breakup and is likely addressed to an ex, from the beginning statement of “I’m a realist and an optimist, but I swear to you I’m not getting over this” followed by the burst of guitar manages to pull my interest.
There are definitely tracks on Around the World and Back that find themselves staying in the cookie cutter patterns that the band’s elders have set-up, but there are also tracks that manage to frost those cookies differently enough to have me enjoy them. The acoustic title track “Around The World And Back” and the following track “Breaking Ground” show that State Champs can do something different if they’re willing to try. Unfortunately, too many tracks on this album feel like any other band in the genre could have put them out.
The genre of pop punk as a whole really needs something or someone to come along and shake up the general sound of everything. Don’t get me wrong, I love this genre. Or maybe it’d be better to say that I loved this genre once upon a time. Nothing is going to keep me from jamming to Fall Out Boy’s “Sugar, We’re Going Down” or singing along to Paramore’s “Misery Business” or Yellow Card’s “Ocean Avenue”, but as I grow up and move out of the target audience of the current pop punk bands, I find myself enjoying the genre less and less. There will always be an audience for songs talking about breakups or the good times you had with your friends on the weekend, but if the genre wants more respect and recognition from listeners outside of high school and their early years of college, a change needs to come.
FCC: “Shape Up” (Track 7)
RIYL: All Time Low, The Story So Far, Man Overboard
