Kinda disappointing but not that bad – Nothing Personal.

Review: Nothing Personal – All Time Low

Rating: 3/5

Pop punk has always been about writing songs that include the essence of summer, skating, girlfriends and getting dumped, drunk and doing whatever you want, with the sounds of loud, fast, distorted guitars and crappy singing. At the same time these songs have to have incredibly catchy hooks, poppy melodies and guitar riffs that could get stuck in your head for days on end.

It is getting this formula of combining the pop and the punk elements correctly to various degrees which separates the crappy boy band albums from the great pop-punk albums. (see Green Day’s Dookie,  Blink 182’s Cheshire Cat, Fall Out Boy’s Evening Out With Your Girlfriend etc…)

Starting of with an indie release album The Party Scene, All Time Low ticked all the right boxes of what defines pop punk with songs such as, The Girl’s a Straight-Up Hustler, Break Out! Break Out! and Circles. The band then signed with Hopeless Records where they picked the favorites from their debut album and rerecorded them. Creating the much more polished and professional sounding EP Put Up Or Shut Up, this eventually lead them to record their second album So Wrong It’s Right.

But before I get carried away writing a biography of the band I better get started on the review. So here I go…

Nothing Personal is All Time Low’s third and latest album, and evident from their sound that they have changed alot since their first release. Moving on from the heavier punkier Put Up Or Shut Up sound, the band has changed its direction to a much poppier sound continuing on from the direction of So Wrong Its Right. Whether this is good or bad thing relies on how they have balanced their poppy-ness with thier punky-ness.

The album starts off with Weightless, and if you are an avid All Time Low fan, the first time you listen to Weightless you will immediately notice that Alex Gaskarth’s (singer/guitarist) vocals are unusually high and this may put you off but don’t fret because as soon as the distorted guitars start, the song explodes into an incredibly catchy chorus making Weightless the best song on the album.

Break Your Little Heart continues the great pop punk sounds with the angst filled lyrics featuring the title of the album “Wide awake my mistakes so predictable, You were fake I was great – nothing personal” (I love it when bands do that) But it is after this track that I start to find faults in the album, and the first fault lies with Damned If I Do Ya (Damned If I Don’t).

Nothing Personal was Produced by five different producers and the reason the band has chosen to do this was because they felt that the songs on their previous album sounded too similar with the same feel for each song. But having five different producers to produce their different sounds could also have its faults and to me this is evident in the songs Damned If I Do Ya (Damned If I Don’t) and Too Much.

Damned If I Do Ya (Damned If I Don’t) was produced by Butch Walker and it is SOOO evident that he has had alot of input into the song which isn’t really a bad thing apart from being a bit too poppy for my liking. It is Too Much which REALLY drops the ball on this album. The song was produced by The-Dream and personally I don’t know what they were thinking… this song sounds like something off a NSYNC or Back Street Boys album… this weird sound is also found on the intro to Walls but as soon as Alex starts singing, the song becomes great and defiantly one of my favourites all you have to do is remind yourself that they probably wont be able to play that into when they play it live.

Another disappointment is Hello Broklyn, the song just doesn’t sit well with me, especially the lyrics at the end where he starts naming all the different cities… (London, Tokyo, Boston, Frisco, DC, Chicago, Baltimore, there’s a party at the end of the world, Toronto, Memphis, Rio, Dublin, Mexico, Paris, here we go everybody knows there’s a party at the end of the world) its just TOO cheesy and poppy.

The album continues with again, the poppier tunes, of Lost in Stereo and Sick Little Games which I find disappointing compared to what they could really sound like. However hidden within these pop filled tracks lies a gem and this gem goes by the name of Stella. Stella is a change from the “normal” All Time Low sound and reminds me slightly of My Chemical Romance, not the old MCR but more of a Teenagers from Black Parade (that might just be me, but yeah I really enjoy listening to Stella)

On a similar note, the chorus on Keep the Change, You Filthy Animal sounds like a song of a New Found Glory Album (Listen To Your Friends) but who cares? The song sounds great! It is defiantly going to become a great song live along with A Party Song (The Walk of Shame) which is filled to the brim with gang vocals for the crowed to sing along to (lots and lots of Woah-Oh’s) both of these songs are poppy but still retaining the All Time Low feel putting them up high on my play count.

The album ends with Therapy which is what I assume to be the ballad or slow song of the album. After Remembering Sunday on the previous album they had alot to live up to and Therapy just doesn’t do it. It reminds me of this. Actually maybe it would have been better if they recorded that for the album.

Overall the album has some great songs such as Weightless, Break Your Little Heart, Stella, Keep the Change and A Party Song however I feel it doesn’t really live up to their Put Up Or Shut Up standard which is what made me fall in LOVE with this band in the first place. Kinda disappointing but not that bad – Nothing Personal.

Check out Adrian’s review here.

- review writer timothy

trying to be more poetic or artistic or emo or gay or something

Hi,

Skipping all formalities im just going to jump right in.

Im sitting here, listening to The Maine and its raining outside. While I was walking around, I noticed that it was a pretty gloomy day today, with all the rain and grey clouds in the sky…. It wasn’t until I put my earphones on and pressed play my ipod that I noticed that even on rainy days, the simple things can look just as amazing.

For example, I was walking down George street on my way to the bus stop with my broken umbrella in one hand and my ipod in the other. The rain was pouring down as pressed play on my ipod (on shuffle) and Inaudible Melodies by Jack Johnson had come on, and just at THAT moment I happened to notice a couple of brown maple tree leaves falling down from a tree in unison something like synchronised skydivers or something. (if they exist)

But yeah, its simple things like this that has been capturing my attention lately. I’m not really sure if this is due to the fact that my brain has become incredibly bored with my life or if im subliminally trying to be more poetic or artistic or emo or gay or something (I don’t know how this makes sense but…)

A couple of other things similar to what happened today that I have noticed while staring into nothing or walking from one place to another are, a hamburger shaped bicycle bell on a bicycle chained to a lampost, I couldn’t resist the temptation to walk over and start ringing the bell a few times even though this was against Jasmine’s approval, two Labrador puppies playing/fighting on a hill with no owners or people insight and what had looked like a homeless person, quietly approaching me from behind and blowing bubbles into my face as I stood waiting for my bus alone.

I guess stranger things have happened.

I hope this qualifies as a reasonable blog entry.

- prosaic timothy

Shaky Beginnings

Dear Readers,

After posting my previous blog, i realised that blogging can not be kept on a regular schedule. To put it in a way that everyone can understand, blogging is like playing string figures if you only use your fingers to manipulate the stings then you can only achieve a certain level of sting figure “proness” it is only when you utilise your mouth, wrist, and feet that you become an actual “pro“.

So after realising this, ive decided to blog as regularly as possible. This way I can get most out of my blog posts and recount all of my stories instead of picking the best ones and talking about them. I know that at the moment my blog is at the establishment stage in the blogging life cycle and that this is shaky beginnings, so i think that this would be the best time to experiment and make changes to how my blogging experience will work out.

Back onto the actual blogging side of things… Recently ive been wearing my contact lenses again, and after having mixed responses from my friends on which i should wear (my glasses or my contacts) i have decided to create a poll.

So what do you think? 1) Contacts 2) Glasses View Results Make your own poll

I know that it is a bit hard to vote with out the pictures, so as soon as i get some decent “pixz” of myself i will update this entry and put them up. This whole talk about polls and pictures has gotten me curious… maybe i should have two polls one for the glasses or contacts ordeal and maybe one for the whole SCENE arguement… (yes… its still on my mind)

Anyways before i finish off, i wanted to talk to you about two things. Firstly the sudden influx of blogging among my peers… EVEN IF they have had their blogs longer then mine, I personally feel they have left their blogs abandoned and empty… and until recently when i had mentioned the starting of my own blog to them their blogs have re-blossomed or maybe re-animated and come to life. However, my point is not to emphasize my (probably flawed) argument of my friends copying me but to show you guys their blogs:

- Ivan - the lengthy blog writer

- Lenny - the master of the blogging with real blogging topics, such as the discussion of his top ten films

- Adrian - the fussy one e.g. “Chocolate-milk obsessed (but I hate the normal stuff)”

All three of these guys have aspects within their blogs that i aspire to and one day hope to achieve.

Secondly and finally id like to talk about the songs that i mentioned on Wednesday. But to tell you the truth i feel like i have run out of time and yet again ill have to leave it for another day…

Kind Regards,

Tim Wakulicz

7th out of the 8

FRIDAY!

What can i say? ALOT has happened over the last 2 days… and OHhhhhhh boy…. you guys, girls, internet folk and cyber trotters (that ones a bit gay…) dont know what i have instore for you today! anywho… ive got a feeling that i have alot to cover in this one blog post, so i think i better get started.

I think firstly, i should start off where i left off on Wednesday… After being called/categorized as a “Scene boy”, this idea of scene has been on my mind alot… and after asking everyone “what makes me so scene?” Ive narrowed it down to two things… apparently there are two things that make me scene.

1. The way I dress…
2. My hair…

And i dont understand… i always thought that i dressed nicely, colorfully and hopefully/possibly fashionably… but apparently i dont… and apparently, even though it isnt so apparent to me, i dress like a scene person… maybe its just gotten to my head… and its nothing… but it has just been on my mind alot lately and i thought i would share this with you.

Umm the next thing i wanted to talk about, the next topic on the agenda is… probably a little about today. I guess ill start off by reminding you that today is the 8th of the 8th month of the year 2008 and when this is put into the short hand date format it looks a little like this: 08/08/08, not that this has to do with anything i was going to talk about, but today was the day that the Olympic ceremony was held and the Beijing Olympic games officially started.  But again this has little to do with what i really want to talk about.

So getting back on to the topic… today me and my colleagues, the eight of us, had lunch together. After what i thought would be an never ending brainstorm/arguement on where to eat, we decided to go to McDonalds where we all bought pounders and embarked/took part in a race, a race to see which one of us could finish these heartstopping burgers first…

A race to find out which one of us would come last and have to bare the shame of not being able to finish the POUNDER… Luckily i came 7th out of the 8 and was spared from the ridicule and constant heckling, the two things, that made Jason (the last one to finish) spit/cough out his pounder all over the table.

On a different and final subject (only becuase its already 1am and im falling asleep)… i feel this weekend will hold interesting aspects… this is mainly because this Sunday, the 10th of August 2008, is the Sun Herald City 2 Surf, a 14km marathon, in which i have enrolled in… why did i do this? Because it has always been my dream to run a marathon… however this time things are a little strange… usually when i am close to or have acomplished a dream of mine i would be excited, but today… i am worried… worried because i will be running this marathon by myself… alone… flying solo… i dont really know how this will work out but all i do know is that i am going to need a hell of alot of music to see me through…

Well, i better end it here for today before my blog entry ends up turning into some kind of “…” filled blurb.

-Team

a scene boy…

hullo loyal readers from internet land =)

umm… a few things happened to me over the last two days haha and while these things were happening to me or happened infront of me i thought “oh these are real cool things to write in my blog” haha so ill try my best to recount them for you (if that makes sense?).

05/08/08

so yeah… umm i was walking to work one morning and i remembered my brother telling me that the living end were going to be playing on sunrise so yeah i stopped by and watched them play! CHRIS CHENEY looked at me though the glass windows and i had the biggest smile on my face and when he noticed, he smiled back! haha! i thought that was pretty cool.

06/08/08

umm… alot of things happened today but one important thing in particular… today i got called a “scene boy”… well no actually not ‘called’ but categorized as one… to tell you the truth secretly in my head i took it as a MASSIVE COMPLIMENT hahaha but in reality im not really one, nor do i look like one… i mean really… do i look anything like these guys?

…………………………………

But its things like this that make me think like… what if? what if i did try and look like these guys? what if i was a scene boy… could i pull it off?

————————————————————————————–

Anyways thats about all i can remember… which is nothing much really… i think alot more things, stuff, events and things… have happened… but its kinda late and ive got uni tomorrow…

BUT before i finish of… ive been listening to a few songs alot lately and i think it would be cool… if you guys and girls(?) could check em out… ill also talk a bit more about them later.

Tick of Time by The Kooks

Salty Eyes by The Matches

Whistle For The Choir by The Fratellis

-Timmy