All Time Low

‘Nothing Personal’

Release Date: 7/7

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Record Label: Hopeless

Rating: C-

Get ready to hate All Time Low.

Not because of its sticky, sweet pop punk hooks but because the band will be plastered all over MTV and radio by the end of the summer.

The band’s newest release ‘Nothing Personal’ is picking up the Fall Out Boy/New Found Glory torch and running.

The topics are all the same: girls, broken hearts and hanging out with friends. The band basically takes what its genre’s forbearers did, just not executed as well.

The musical template is pretty much on point with the pop punk formula, but just like Fall Out Boy the band tries to throw some curveballs.

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The Dream shows up behind the boards for ‘Too Much’ and delivers an icy little beat that sounds like he crafted it in under 15 minutes. What it is doing here is a mystery.

The album is missing the crunch of NFG guitars and the snark of Blink 182 to make this a bona-fide pop punk classic.

Too much of the record is so produced the songs come off sounding like non-singles from a Jonas Bros. record. The band distances themselves from the Bros. by tossing in a f-bomb here and there.

All of this is not to say the band has not created a nice little, summer time pop punk album. Each song has an enormous hook and could hang with previous pop punkers who have crossed into the mainstream.

It just looks like All Time Low will receive a staying power more along the lines of The Starting Line than New Found Glory.

Luke McCormick can be reached at 536-3311 ext. 275

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