The Wonder Years / All Or Nothing – Distances

  • Bobby Gorman posted
  • Reviews

Wonder Years, The / All Or Nothing

Distances (7") - No Sleep Records

On The Wonder Years‘ debut full length, Get Stoked On It!, it was clear that the band were trying way too hard to be that ultra gimmicky, happy-go-lucky band. It worked to their disadvantage as the more you listened to the album, the more irritating it became. They keyboards were overbearing and the immature vocals aggravating – not to mention the piss poor artwork as well. So while they had enough similarities to bands that I liked so that I couldn’t write them off completely, I could scarcely consider myself a fan.

But on their new split with Birmingham, England’s All Or NothingThe Wonder Years have taken leaps and bounds ahead of where they were beforehand. The instance the needle hit the beautiful white and blue splatter seven inch, I knew something was better. The band still isn’t at the same level of Set Your Goals but are close as they fall somewhere around the Daggermouth style of pop-punk/hardcore amalgamation. They’ve limited the use of the keyboard to the point where it’s become an afterthought and added bonus as opposed to the leading factor of the song. The vocals are stronger than before, more distinct and more captivating; even outshining Jordan Brown’s delivery on Set Your Goals‘ recent This Will Be The Death of Us. Lyrically, they haven’t changed much but it seems more fluid and natural then before and while still slightly immature, The Wonder Years have some nice turn of phrases in the songs that made me reach for the lyrics sheet.

It may not be the perfect Side A, but its a lot better than expected as they’re much more focused on writing a good solid hook as compared to being the gimmicky band they were before which makes me interested to hear what they do on their next release.

Unfortunately, side B from Birmingham’s All or Nothing doesn’t offer the same selling points. They follow in the same footsteps of The Wonder Years but in a much more straight forward fashion. Eliminating the keyboard, they’ve delivered two songs that follow a more conventional pop-punk, new-era New Found Glory song structure. The downside here though is the vocals. They aren’t terrible, and do have a few great gang chorus like the vinyl verse of Im Not Being Rude, But I Could Have Had Your Job; the problem is that they’re just too poppy, even more nasally and high pitched than Jordan Pudnik. They just don’t work all the time and in the two songs they deliver to the split, they’re never able to really grab me.

For a quick four song split seven inch, it’s not too bad but it does have a few bumps along the way. However, I’ll happily keep my eyes open for any future outputs from the bands, something I wouldn’t have said beforehand.