Worcester band showcases their evolving musical style
By Nicholas Papini
Assistant Editor
Image copyright Four Year Strong and Pure Noise.
The album artwork for Four Year Strong’s sixth album, Brain Pain.
Worcester native band Four Year Strong’s newest album Brain Pain is their best since Enemy of the World in 2009.
Brain Pain is the band’s sixth studio album and it oozes authenticity in both the sound and lyrics of the songs. Like the album title nods to, the music deals with heavy mental issues such as depression, anxiety, and identity crises. Pop punk as a genre is no stranger to emotional music, but Four Year Strong brings new angles to the genre with each of their albums.
Four Year Strong sets itself apart from the competition in an already niche genre by maintaining a more playful atmosphere and upbeat lyrics, and Brain Pain is no exception. “Usefully Useless” juxtaposes lines about depression and identity crises with the beautiful line in the refrain, “I just don’t want to be a wannabe.” Set against a backdrop of poppy, upbeat guitar riffs, “Usefully Useless” becomes easily the best song on the album.
Perhaps the most standout song on the album is “Be Good When I’m Gone,” about being forced to travel and the agony of leaving a family behind. As many of the band members have wives and kids, the song’s downbeat acoustic vibes allow the listener to feel some of what the band members must experience when they go on tour. The echo of, “it gets easier in time” is particularly heartbreaking.
Perhaps the direct opposite of that would be “The Worst Part About Me.” The song’s heavy breakdowns are more reminiscent of a pure post-hardcore band, but it does an excellent job of demonstrating the variety of styles available to Four Year Strong.
“Learn to Love the Lie” and “Get out of My Head” are each solid songs which sound like they would not be out of place on one of their previous albums. They are a bit derivative and felt a bit same-y, but they, and the nostalgia-pandering “Seventeen,” do not hold the album back by much.
Alan Day, Four Year Strong’s frontman, said in a February 27th interview with Worcester Magazine that the album as a whole was meant to show their evolution as musicians from their high school days to now. He stated that the album should feel authentic to a group who “are now grown men in our 30s with families, wives, homes and other things that are important to us in our lives.”
Reaffirming the free-spirited vibe that the band gave off, Day revealed in a March 6, 2009 interview with Unrated Magazine that the band’s name has no real meaning. The band had heard the lyrics in a song by the Get Up Kids and decided to change the lyrics just slightly from five to four to make it their own.
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