If there’s a review written anywhere in the world that doesn’t mention the words ‘grown up’ or ‘mature’ I’ll eat a hat. A band loved by millions for their pop-punk bouncy anthems that spawned a tonne of soundalikes, ‘Coming Home’ is slower, more considered, rock album – and nothing like a punk one. It’s a million miles from ‘Nothing Gold Can Stay’. Even Jordan’s vocal whine has been toned down. And while the sum of these parts has not created a bad album, it’s just sub-par by New Found Glory‘s own standards. If this was any other band, there wouldn’t be a problem – but this doesn’t quite reach the very high benchmark the band have set themselves.
The number of slower songs outnumbers the faster ones greatly, taking away some of the urgency that I personally love about the band. And for possibly the first time on a NFG record, there are actually bad songs – ‘Too Good To Be’ and ‘Familiar Landscapes’ just aren’t that hot at all. Now I know I’ve started off on quite a negative footing, but this album isn’t all that bad…I guess I’m just a little disappointed because I’m looking back at what the band have done previously, rather than thinking about how bands mature and how they grow musically. And I have to mention that because songs such as ‘Oxygen’ and ‘Hold My Hand’ are great songs in anyones book.
The album’s title track is surely a single-in-waiting, a song that has the bounce and energy of a track from their previous albums. And, for a short while at least, it’s this song (catchiest chorus of the year anyone?) which re-ignites the band’s spark. ‘Love and Pain’ is another which is more upbeat and one of the better tracks and ‘Boulder’ is a pretty good one too. The one thing that saves ‘Coming Home’ from the scrapheap is that it is a grower – when I first listened to this album hardly anything stood out and I was very disappointed. But on repeated listens I have grown to love some of the songs and while it’s still not a patch on the self-titled album, one of the pop-punk classics, it’s still not a bad album. NFG have set the bar pretty high and this doesn’t quite reach those heady heights – but it’s still not bad at all…