“Won’t you come jump off the deep end with me?“
Pop punk has spent the turn of the new decade in some what of a tumultuous state. With bands such as Neck Deep and Moose Blood having a marked legacy, the genre has taken a few years to once again find its feet. Recent releases, including Waterparks and Eat Your Heart Out, have shown that that pop-punk may not be on it’s last legs, and the latest addition to that is The Things I Don’t Need from Connecticut unit, Cinema Stare.
As “Real Problems” opens, the stage is set for vocal hooks aplenty with bouncy riffs that loop in the mind beyond the record’s run time. The vocal hook of “Everybody thinks they’ve got real problems, everybody’s dealt a hand that no one else could play” is one that many will find themselves humming in passing. Following track “Bad” sports a snappy chorus reminiscent of the style shown on the aforementioned Eat Your Heart Out’s track “Down“.
The strong opening continues with “Remember” and “Committhistohotkeys“, the former feeling fitting of a coming-of-age film from the 00s, coming with that slightly-dated but still enjoyable feeling. As the chorus hits on “Committhistohotkeys“,the heartfelt delivery of “It’d be nice to finally be loved, by someone not behind a screen” gives a real pull to the track, and the line “Been talking to NPC’s all her life” in the early stages will provide a chuckle for those paying attention to the lyrical content.
It’s at this point that The Things I Don’t Need loses the initial momentum of a new project, and where perhaps the choice to go with a full 12-tracks comes into question. While there is little direct fault to find with “Quinn Goes To Jail“, it passes by without much impact, and maybe could have been left on the cutting room floor. However, the change of pace on “Bob Sigur Ross” and it’s pounding drums immediately shake off any dust, though the extended instrumental outro lacked a sense of purpose to justify it’s near two-minute foray.
The out-of-the-blocks nature of “Deep End” returns to the format of “Bad“, with the addition of a bridge that evokes a sense of early Paramore material. It’s to-the-point nature here is appreciated after the lengthy outing of the previous track. The anthemic nature is turned up on “Legendary Boss” with the introduction of acoustics. As the lamenting chorus of “This energy is killing me, even in my house I wanna go home, now I don’t know” is let out, building almost to a crescendo, it has the grandiose of an album’s penultimate track.
Sticking with a loosely-kept tradition, “Need You” follows this up with an instrumental leaning fully on acoustic guitar. The reflective track of “Someday I know I might need you” has a joyful nature to it, closing out on some of the themes explored earlier in the record. It’s here where the additions of “Anime Bath Scene” and “November Rain Pt.2“, with the album’s closer delivering some juicy riffs, does feel slightly out of structure. They leave The Things I Don’t Need with a final stretch that is slightly difficult to digest, as the sense of closing out or ending sits across 2-4 songs rather than any singular sense of a finale.
To go feet first as early as Cinema Stare have into a full-length is commendable, given how many bands in recent years have opted for singles and EPs in finding their sound. The Connecticut outfit have not chosen the safe route. While specific problems are present with the length and structure, each listener will take something away to enjoy from their with The Things I Don’t Need. With a few tweaks and adding further ambitions to how they can push the genre, Cinema Stare could more than catapult themselves to the forefront of pop punk.
7/10
Cinema Stare is out tomorrow, May 19th, via Static Era Records. And you can pre-order the record here.