Candy Hearts give an image of sickly-sweet pop-punk, even before a listen. ‘All The Ways You Let Me Down’ is an album which is a lot more pop than punk, and there’s no problem with that – the issue here is that everything’s so overproduced that Candy Heart’s third LP verges on overbearing.
The opening song, ‘I Miss You’, gives off more than just a whiff of 90’s pop-punk with a really familiar chord progression and a lo-fi voice effect to boot. That’s all fine but the line, “I miss you and you haven’t even left yet / When you get home, come stay in my bed” is just painful to listen to, and this applies to the rest of the chorus; it’s the part of 90’s pop-punk that I want to forget. That voice effect gets unnecessarily cranked up on the next track, ‘The Dream’s Not Dead’. Everything’s too clean and squeaky, and the vocal effects end up sounding ridiculous on top of that.
The title track has the makings of a solid pop-punk song. Yes, it’s laden with voice effects and that same chord progression that’s been done to death but it’s fun and light-hearted. The lyrics are shallow though – if we’re following a story, this person was longing for their partner and now regrets even being in a relationship with said partner – it feels like somebody trying to explain why their status on Facebook is set to “it’s complicated”.
As easy as it is to be cynical, there is a context where this album works – it’s summer and there’s almost an expectation to enjoy everything that’s being bathed in the warm glow of the sun, but the lead singer Mariel Loveland seems conflicted, possible because of the aforementioned break-up(s) clinging onto her. ‘Coffee With My Friends’ somewhat reflects that feeling towards the end of the album, as does ‘Something’s Missing’. In fact these two tracks are more enjoyable than the beginning of the record, relying on lyrics which aren’t as trite with fewer cheap-sounding effects.
There are a few promising moments here: the songs don’t drag on and everything’s played at a pleasing speed, with some lyrics that some fans will surely relate to. Despite a few promising moments ‘All The Ways You Let Me Down’ just isn’t the definitive pop punk album you’re longing for this Summer.
SAMARTH KANAL
SAMARTH KANAL