This is an odd one. This record sounds like about 4 different bands thrown together, there’s a lot going on, often in different songs, and it lacks a bit of cohesion. Don’t get me wrong, when Washington Square Park are good, they’re very good. But when they’re not very good, they’re a bit…well, baffling. ‘No Medication’ and ‘Believing’, for instance, are brilliant, brilliant pop-punk songs. They’re energetic and raw and catchy. WSP have a vocalist who is clever with his lyrics and razor-sharp with it. There’s a fair few songs here which launch at you with all the venom of a pissed off rattlesnake and they make you sit up and go ‘yeah, this shit is good…’
But then there tracks which are a bit off-kilter and, for me at least, don’t seem to fit with what the band seem to try and do most of the time. ‘Unlisted’ is the crappy, token closing acoustic song that should never have made the tracklisting, ‘Full and Through’ reminds me of Ash, ‘Center of My World’ has some kind of 70s/80s trippy vibe…it’s all a bit weird. None of them are particularly bad songs, they just stick out like a sore thumb from most of the album. They say variety is the spice of life and I guess to an extent it is. It’s just this record sounds a bit disjointed and hinders what potentially could have been a brilliant album, instead of one that’s just alright.