The album titles hits the nail on the head for Farewell. And luckily for them this CD is a great deal of fun. Bridging the gap between Motion City Soundtrack and Fall Out Boy, the band use synths to create some of the poppiest pop-punk tunes you’ve heard in ages. Infact it’s a mystery this band actually aren’t bigger than they already are – for me this is better than the last MCS record and certainly on a par with the last FOB album.
The first half dozen tracks on this record are pure pop-punk perfection. The chorus on ‘Anchors Away’ has a hook big enough to land a whale, while ‘Start It Up’ is the perfect way to get the energy levels on the rise. While Farewell are unashamedly poppy it’d be easy to fall flat if the singalongs didn’t come up to scratch, so it’s a good job they do – ‘Stay Pretty’ is as infectious as MRSA in a hospital ward and ‘War’ will have you singing along in no time. My only complaint would be that the album starts to tail off a little bit towards the end, not in a bad way, just that some of the songs aren’t as catchy.
That said, there’s more than enough here to tell All Time Low and Forever The Sickest Kids that their bid to be crowned pop punk kids in 2008 will not be easy. Can either band write a better song than ‘First One On The Blog’? Let’s wait and see…