I Listened to the New The Front Bottoms Album, and Yeah...You *Are* Who You Hang Out With
This album was made for the people who spent way too much time listening to the unreleased albums from 2008 exclusively on YouTube.
Last Friday, The Front Bottoms released their sixth studio album, You Are Who You Hang Out With. I wanted to take the week to listen to this album and review it with care, avoiding the feeling of being rushed to put something out there. It’s been a minute since I fully tuned back into this band from my teenage years. Sure, I listened to the Theresa EP last Fall because their EPs repurpose songs from the unreleased albums (which I’m a huge fan of), but I did not pay any real attention to this band since the “Allentown” single from 2018. Sorry, but I have no sentimental attachment to In Sickness & Flames (2020) despite it having pretty good songs.
But, since it’s late summer and we’re approaching Folk Punk Fall, why not give You Are Who You Hang Out With a decent, fair shot?
I’m so glad I did! This album hit my central nerve in a very specific way, and it reminded me exactly why I really love the The Front Bottoms’ music.
You Are Who You Hang Out With is the strongest attempt by the band to pinpoint excatly what makes them special. As an album dedicated to the idea of getting lost to find yourself again, learning from all the people who meet in the process, the decision to go back in time in the band’s own musical history to reposition themselves as artists is endearing. In 36 minutes, the tracks capture all the memories from the Self-Titled album (I can spot that intro guitar melody from “Flashlight”/“Punching Bag” from anywhere), the vocals from Going Grey, the Rock ‘n Roll vibe from Back On Top, and that beloved reckless charm from Talon Of The Hawk, all to demonstrate their growth as musicians. For this album, the band even dug deep into the relatively unknown 2016-17 side project (The Flat Stanleys), taking the guitar part for “Me v. Your Friends” and repurposing it for “Batman.” They even brought back the chimes and pianos that haven’t been around since the early 20-teens, the weirdly specific lyrics that both do and do not make sense, and the verging-on-uncontrollable vocal pattern that’s somewhere between spoken word and yodelling! It may not sound good to people used to highly-manicured music, but it’s The Front Bottoms, and I love it for that reason!
It comes as no surprise, then, that my favorite songs are those that really tap into the energy the band had during the unreleased albums from 2008. Songs like “Outlook”, where the acoustic guitar and plunky piano feel like a nice homage to “Maps” (Self-Titled), are super catchy and have strong lyrics. “Punching Bag” is on the simpler side, but its melancholic lyrics and repetition feel a lot like one of the songs from the Grandma EP series. Also, it repurposes the guitar intro from “Flashlight”, so I naturally lost my mind the first time I heard it. I can see “Batman” becoming the fan-favorite; out of all the new tracks, this one has the weirdly specific lyrics, the one line that everyone can and will scream a little too loud (I know the girlies will be singing, “Truth is, I have always been an embarassment / You are who you hang out with”), the repurposed guitar from a deep cut (hiiii “Me v. Your Friends”), and vocals that do not sound good. I really like “Clear Path” and “Brick” because they’re both really fun and have a cool central metaphor—they’re also the most Talon Of The Hawk-esque tracks. “Finding your way home” is their most original song in their catalogue, and I like the slower, moodier direction it took.
The only song I didn’t particularly vibe with was “Emotional.” The song already has very The Front Bottoms lyrics and music; the slight autotune feels unnatural and doesn’t work as a ‘surprise’. I’m not a fan of random vocal warping in general; it cheapens the sound of the song and always feels like an afterthought. It rarely fits into an otherwise natural-sounding, live band recording—leave that GarageBand effect to hyperpop artists.
My main critique for this album is that it sounds almost too clean for a TFB “return-to-roots” album. With albums like Going Grey, where the band intended to produce a cooler, more introspective and mature sound, the polished production and toned down vocals worked very well. With that album, the Front Bottoms was clearly trying to depart from their signature style. Here, you can hear the band go a little crazy with the backup vocals (“Not Joking”, “Batman”), much like they did for the songs in Self-Titled and the 2008 albums. You can also hear them try to recapture that bombastic approach to playing music seen when they were at the height of their pop/folk-punk, 3rd wave emo sound (to avoid saying “Midwest Emo” because it’s not). However—and this is difficult to explain—the ‘3rd wave emo’ sound just isn’t there because it sounds clean. The microphone is almost too good. The vocals are too separated from the instruments, so they don’t feel together like they did in Talon Of The Hawk (2013). Most importantly, the direct influence of the New Jersey pop punk scene of the early 2000s that defined their work until 2016 has been filtered out almost completely. That signature messiness is gone, and it dilutes the intensity of their emotions.
Don’t get me wrong; I don’t want to come off as that annoying person who always wants bands to “go back to their old sound.” In fact, Going Grey was The Front Bottoms’ biggest sonic departure, and I loved the direction they took for this album. What I’m trying to say is that The Front Bottoms is a band that doesn’t need to change their sound that much to be awesome. They’re special because they were able to capture what it felt like coming of age while trapped in the Philadelphia/New Jersey suburbs at a moment where Midwest Emo and early 2000s pop punk were being revitalized by bands on the East Coast. There’s a reason they were the defining band of that wave (alongside Modern Baseball, who’s another beloved of mine)—their music was rambunctious, fun, and emotionally fulfilling for teenagers who hated the suburbs!
But maybe that was just the era, and the time for hating your hometown is over. And maybe that’s okay! Each musical moment has its time, and if there’s no longer a need for this kind of folk/pop-punk sound, then I think You Are Who You Hang Out With’s ability to capture most of it yet still feel modern in 2023 is the next best thing.
I only would like to see one thing from The Front Bottoms; please, please, please put “You Wouldn’t Be Laughing”, “The Bass Is Too Loud” and “Taking My Uzi To The Gym” on the next EP. Please, I’m begging.
Sorry I was gone for a bit. Anyway, happy August, and get ready for the advent of Folk Punk Fall, where none of my suggestions will be good, but goddamn do I love these freaks anyway.