Face to Face - Laugh Now, Laugh Later

So, I get made fun of a lot. By a lot of people. For a lot of things. If there are two people who make fun of me (to my face) more than anyone else in the world, it would have to be the Bear and my roommate Holly. One of the bigger things Holly likes to make fun of me for is the fact that I had never heard of Face to Face until she brought them up for the millionth time. I've felt dumb for this, after reading about how famous of a punk band they are. Then I listened to this new album, and I sort of wanted to go back to never having heard of them. Too late.

Actually, that first paragraph is hardly fair. Some of these songs are actually incredibly catchy, and definitely have every right to exist. The first song on this Laugh Now, Laugh Later record, however, hardly has that right. It's trite, boring, tedious, and every other word that lives amongst those words. It gave me an immediate negative first impression of the band...then I heard the second song. "It's Not All About You" is by far a better song than the opening track, and I mean this in pretty much every way. It's catchier, the instrumentals are definitely more fun to listen to,  and the vocalist's voice works better for it. It feels kind of manufactured in the end, with the way the song kind of out of nowhere switches to some kind of random Bad Religion-type interlude, but then it goes back into the cool lead guitar with the catchy, fast vocals and saves itself as one of the better songs on this release.

The third song only exists for the cool bass guitar part while the rhythm guitar is doing some muted stuff. Other than that, the woahs just sound too adult for me. Not digging on it. You know what I mean...like when you hear The Steinways do woahs, it sounds juvenile, but when you hear Bad Religion or Face to Face do woahs, it sounds too adult, and almost Dropkick Murphylike due to it. Not digging on it.

I take back my initial judgement of this band being something I didn't really care to know about. They have a fair amount of entertaining songs on this release, and it's probably the case with everything they've put out before this point. I think I have something against bands when they become old dudes, for some reason...it's kind of like that feeling you get when you realize the songs about girls on Cool to Be You are about their wives...and there's that one song about taking a shit. It's just off-putting and confusing. But it would make me an ageist or whatever if I didn't support the older punks. I really should support them, too, because I'll be them one day. And that thought doesn't scare me so much when I heard older dudes still putting out awesome pop punk shit and out-rocking the younger staples of the scene. I think I'll be okay with breaking 40, guys. Finally, I'll be okay. Thanks to Face to Face. Wow, this review has gone several places...

"All For Nothing" is probably the best song on this album. Maybe. That second song really kicked some serious teeth in. Not baby teeth either, full, grown-ass teeth. "Pushover" also rules as a song. Okay, this album has a lot of fucking rad packed into it. I feel foolish for basing it all on the fact that I think the first song is blowsville. I'll never judge a book by its first page ever again. Well, that's also not true. If the first page is a picture of a rabbit being murdered or a bunch of words supporting the Donald Trump campaign, I'd probably put it down.

-Idle

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