All Time Low have never been in their eponymous emotional state: their particular brand has always rung out with crisp dynamics and happily chanted choruses about girls and all the fun of summer. One can always expect an onslaught of this type of music being released throughout the summer, as teeny boppers look around for a new soundtrack to their dramatic lifestyles and their first experiences with boys, alcohol, and the like. Not that you can blame them: there is something comfortable about blasting over-produced pop-punk on your car stereo while driving to your friend’s house, expectations for the night ahead rushing through your mind.

So with the July 7th release of their latest album, Nothing Personal, All Time Low are sure to find their way into the stereos of anyone looking for a way to pass the time with a smile on their face. Don’t expect your indie or punk cred blasting this while rolling down M Street—there is no vast soundscape or Pitchfork-glam material to be found here. But for those with more easygoing taste, for the most part, something about this just works.

Ever since they released So Wrong, It’s Right, with its hippity-hoppity, chart-riding hits in 2007, All Time Low has found success in many scenes: the fact that its fans range from the colorful, Hot Topic-adorning bunch to the more straight-laced demonstrate how much of a guilty pleasure these guys have become. With their swelling, simple riffs that fall into half-tempo breakdowns, it’s clear that they haven’t reinvented the wheel with their sound; but it’s also clear that they do what they do far better than the hundreds of similar bands that find their way onto MySpace and Warped Tour every year.

From first single and opening track “Weightless,” it takes a mere 29 seconds for you to understand what you’re in for. Alex Gaskarth’s lyrics fall somewhere in between honest and cheesy, but mixed with undeniably catchy hooks and pounding drums, you’re sure to get the chorus of this song and the majority of the next eleven stuck in your head on repeat. The second single from the album “Damned if I do ya (Damned if I don’t)” is one of the catchiest songs (and most apt to play in Hollister) that I’ve heard in a long time; and with a Butch Walker production, you know the “Woah-oh-oh” won’t stop until completely necessary.

That being said, every track isn’t guilty pleasure-worthy—when the track counter ticks to seven and you find yourself listening to “Hello Brooklyn,” you’ll be want to say goodbye instead. Intense over-production, average lyricism, and discussion of an apparent “party at the end of the world” that everybody seems to know about makes this song a little too standard for its own good. Two tracks later, “Too Much”, you’ll find a track produced by The-Dream that is the epitome of its title, as the band drops the guitars and picks up the boy-band aesthetic. (And isn’t their some unwritten rule about how many times a band can repeat a song’s title?)

But with the listener’s discretion and an avid use of the skip function, this album presents a little over a half an hour of pop gems. Its only real problem is that this album could have easily been titled So Right, It’s Wrong—it feels a little too expected. And while “Keep The Change, You Filthy Animal” might be a blatant rip-off of all things New Found Glory, this is a fit soundtrack for the remaining summer nights.

Head to MTV’s The Leak to here the album in its entirety before its release this upcoming Tuesday.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 2nd, 2009 at 3:58 pm and is filed under Leisure, Vox Populi. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.