Most bands pride themselves on a personal connection with their fans, but no-one can be closer to their supporters than the Bouncing Souls. During the dark and tedious pandemic years, the band started a Patreon, and the top tier reward for subscribers: a custom song written just for them. “We’ve written so many songs from our own experiences but this time we really stepped outside of that,” said vocalist Greg Attonito. The result is a profoundly hopeful record captures something intangible about the zeitgeist after the pandemic, at turns lonely and universally personal.
The title track and first single ‘Ten Stories High’ opens with that nostalgic radio sound of a thousand remembered drives that ruptures into the kind of anthemic, everyman chorus that powers all great Bouncing Souls songs. “We really liked how the title added imagery of ten people in a ten story building living out their own external and internal experiences,” explained Attonito, and there’s a gloriously unifying DIY energy to the song. It’s very clear from the outset that the Bouncing Souls are acting their age; you won’t find a ‘Kate Is Great’ or ‘True Believers’ on this record, but that’s not a bad thing. They’re not jaded by their status as punk survivors, and they’re holding on to their optimism as their sound evolves and grows more wry with each passing album.
‘Shannon’s Song’ was directly inspired by one of the band’s Patreon supporters. “We were chatting with [a fan called] Shannon who told us about a time she lived in Russia years ago. She had learned to speak Russian so we joked that maybe she was a spy. She replied, ‘maybe I am?’ That was the seed for a spy song which evolved into a spy love song,” according to Attonito, and from that description you’d be expecting a Bond theme. Instead, a Gaslight Anthem-like sincerity and uncertainty permeates a song as full of beauty and bass as a beating heart, making it a clear favourite on the record.
At the heart of ‘Ten Stories High’ is a sense of searching and longing as the Bouncing Souls emerge from their pandemic-induced exile. ‘Back To Better’ has galloping punk rock drumming and hopeful lyrical core about reclaiming yourself, while ‘Another Day in Denver’ is the song for when you return to your hometown and try to look through the changes to find your place in it. The guitar is naive and teenage which works so perfectly with the spirit of the song. ‘True Believer Radio’ is the most intriguing song; it’s so self aware, capturing when someone hears their own songs played on the radio. Positioned both as listener and musician, you come away with more questions than answers, and more appreciation for the vocal leaps than criticisms.
This is an album that will cling to you and twist inside your chest. For those of us who’ve grown up with the Bouncing Souls, there’s all the hallmarks that we love about them contained in this painfully short album, from slapping drums and untethered, motoring bass to wailing, singalong backing vocals. But there’s also an acknowledgment that we’ve changed and evolved as people as they have, because this is a record with an air of age and distance. It speaks to the Bouncing Souls fan of 2023 and this is arguably one of their best albums to date, full of strength, conviction and that unique Bouncing Souls spirit.
KATE ALLVEY