18 months, in the world of music, really isn’t that long. One criticism that can immediately be levelled at the new Yellowcard record – their second in that space of time, following on from last year’s ‘When You’re Through Thinking, Say Yes’ – is that it’s rushed. Or at least, such an accusation could come from those who haven’t yet heard it. The thing that makes ‘Southern Air’ so good is that it is the result of one of the most energetic periods of activity in the band’s 15-year history. Defiant, euphoric and mostly uptempo, it’s a real contender for the definitive pop-punk album of the year.
My relationship with Yellowcard had, up until last year, been peripheral at best. I’d been aware of the band for about eight years – unlike most people my age, I didn’t really have a pop-punk ‘phase’ growing up, and indeed, one could say that mine began last year in earnest when I stumbled upon this band, The Swellers and This Time Next Year around the same time. One of my favourite albums of last year was The Wonder Years’s latest record, so yeah, go figure. ‘When You’re Through…’ took a while to have a full effect, but its impact was staggering last year, so when news of this album arrived, I got quite excited.
It was started in January, wrapped in April, and hits shelves today. Buoyed by the positive response to its predecessor and filled with positive energy, the Floridian quartet didn’t screw around with the creation of their eighth studio album, and the result is a genuinely wonderful album. The scene-setting, soaring opener ‘Awakening’ kicks things off perfectly: ‘Bottoms up tonight; I drink to you and I, ’cause with the morning comes the rest of my life’. A triumphant song about getting over heartbreak, it sets out many of the album’s themes. As much as it looks to the past (future single ‘Here I Am Alive’ – ‘If I could write to the kid I was before, I’d tell him, “You’ll get everything you ever wanted, but you will still want more”‘), ‘Southern Air’ also has one eye on the future. The defining feature of the band’s sound remains the sterling work of violinist Sean Mackin (who switches things up and takes on mandolin duties for one of the album’s ballads, ‘Telescope’, which sees Alex Gaskarth of All Time Low, Cassadee Pope of Hey Monday and Tay Jardine of We Are The In Crowd making guest appearances), but the band as a whole have tightened up and become more musically adventurous.
The dazzling album highlight ‘Sleep in the Snow’ juggles time-signatures and is perhaps the most hard-hitting song on the album, frontman Ryan Key reflecting on how some of life’s choices don’t work out (‘I took a flight and headed home, and maybe now we’ll never know, but I would lose everything if it could bring you back to me’); as positive as the album is, it’s not all sunshine and roses, and the song closes with a plaintive, violin-led coda: ‘You think you can leave me here, but I know you’ll be back next year’. Things take on a more personal touch with penultimate track ‘Ten’, with Key lamenting the son he lost in a straightforward and heartwrenching song: ‘I found out in the fall; I’d been gone on the road for a year / She said “Honey I’ve got real bad news,” and then there were just tears, and we would never be the same again.’ Despite this, however, things end on a positive note, as an album like this should, with the title track closing things in fine fashion, and helping to bring the curtain down on a band reinvigorated and full of life. There was a time when people thought this band would never make music again; I, for one, am glad they decided to come off hiatus, because they’ve finally won me over.
‘Southern Air’ is out on Hopeless Records today.
Posted by Gareth O’Malley
