Album Reviews

- by Chris Crane

If you’re a fan of Real Friends’ previous full length, “Maybe This Place Is the Same and We're Just Changing” (and its excessively long album title) you’re probably gonna like “The Home Inside My Head”. This latest release progresses from its predecessor without distancing itself from their established sound.

I’d put it squarely in that vein of quote-unquote pop-punk, that’s not very poppy and not very punk. The vocals are doing that emo Mariah Carey thing where they never hold a solid note and warble all over the place, over-emoting every syllable. This dude really wants you to know about his feelz. The music is technically proficient, but there’s too much going on for it to feel like it has structure. Lyrically there are some great lines, “I’m fucking up and getting over it” in “Mokena”, and “I’m Still a Lost Boy” in “Mess” for example. Great lines, great concepts, but they feel wedged in, and the rest of the song doesn’t feel cohesive enough to support those concepts. The line “Let’s go back to all those Dashboard songs” from “Basement Stairs” basically summed this up for me. I couldn’t name a Dashboard Confessional song, but I bet they sound like these guys. If you’re into that, go grab this one.