The Menzingers have a lot to live up to with ‘Rented World’. Their last full length, ‘On The Impossible Past’, was a firm favourite in 2012 (and many of the Punktastic team’s favourite album of the year) and their live shows are consistently top notch. Some people don’t get it – and that’s okay, sort of – but they have the chance to convert doubters and compound their status with fans this time out and you could feel that they knew it with ‘In Remission’.
The Menzingers have always been fantastic at producing consistent albums rather and, happily, ‘Rented World’ carries on this fine tradition. The twelve songs within stay over the three minute mark on all but two occasions and the dynamic changes across the record (even from track to track) are absolutely perfect.
The album couldn’t get off to better start than ‘I Don’t Want To Be An Asshole Anymore.’ It’d be a surprise (or a mistake) if the band don’t start opening up their live shows with it going forward, as the intro falling into the verse is perfect for getting people pumped for the rest of the set and audience is theirs to lose from that point onwards.
As previously mentioned, The Menzingers really are “an album band”, and it’s hard to pick out individual tracks when they all work so well sat in with eachother, but the “Don’t wait up for me my friend…” breakdown on ‘Bad Things’, and the “I was a pushy one, when she tried to find someone new” line on ‘Where Your Heartache Exists’ (and the chorus while we’re at it) make the opening act of the album a magnetic listen.
It’s pretty easy to call every album you like an ‘Album Of The Year Contender’, but here it’s absolutely fair to throw that phrase around honestly rather than for the sake of bulking out a word count, and The Menzingers have followed up ‘On The Impossible Past’ with a 12 track hit fest here.
Hopefully it’s the record that manages to maintain the steady upward progress of the last few years, and it’s bound to increase and cement their status as one of the most exciting punk bands of the last five years or so. If you listen to one new record this month, then make it ‘Rented World’. The Menzingers are going nowhere, and we couldn’t be more excited to hear the new songs live.
TOM AYLOTT