ALBUM REVIEW: A Different Life – Cold Years
The stark evolution of punk since the early 80s has unearthed things no-one could have expected, from the influence-via-boot style hardcore to the broad appeal soaring of the arena punk crowd. What remains consistent are the core tenets and philosophies – among others, if you’re not true to yourself, you aren’t punk rock. On that front, Aberdeen natives COLD YEARS don’t mess around. Heart-on-their-sleeve thematics are laid on thicker than the namesake oats from the word go and their first two albums were stuffed to bursting with accessible anthems on a range of personal topics, from loss to life itself.
With A Different Life, the Word of the Day is “escaping” and all adjacent topics, be that leaving your small town and your roots behind or straight up cutting toxic folk loose to the wind. There’s little room to breathe between the theme throughout, in truth, as it pervades the entire album one way or the other with varying mediums. Take Let Go, which delivers as much as the snappy Roll With It does in that now familiar GREEN DAY style of single kick drums and low chord counts, but instead with huge sing-along choruses. The range of different variants of the single theme on show are impressive, but they do come with a catch.
Yes, the secret phrase buzzer has officially sounded. At what point does imitation become too sincere a form of flattery? At times on sophomore effort Goodbye To Misery, COLD YEARS were practically indistinguishable from GREEN DAY, bar the occasional Scottish accent. This time around the references are lower but still running the spectrum of the known. Tracks with a little more bite like Choke use their acidic tone to channel swaggering punk pomp, but on the other end of that spectrum things get more by-the-numbers; Radio is as radio does, an utterly inoffensive piece of the attempted anthemic that ticks pop-punk boxes and not much else. In channelling everything, COLD YEARS have taken the bad with the good and it reflects on them just as much as it did on their inspirations.
This does create a parallel, one that defines where A Different Life has grown into its own. When COLD YEARS are bucking the trend and doing things you wouldn’t expect, things start to land all tens up. Sick is a gorgeous blend of piano and strings that eschews the conventional vitriol delivery system but retains its punk heritage, while Fuck The Weather might be the most anyone is blindsided by a ballad this year – a throwback piece that draws on the doo-wop stylings of DION AND THE BELMONTS of all things. It’s equally surprising and well put together and it feels like a true side of COLD YEARS showing amongst the mirrors held up to the modern American style.
It’s hard to deny the hook-ish nature of that brand of arena punk that RISE AGAINST and the often aforementioned GREEN DAY have perfected over the last decade. And COLD YEARS are, for their flatter moments and faults, immediately enjoyable, in that arms-around-each-others-shoulders singalong with your closest friends sort of way. What’s most interesting in A Different Life are things that are exclusive to them, or at least the most faintly tinged with American Idiot/21st Century Breakdown. Where they have more input in the stylings is recognisable immediately as a high point and is, hopefully, more fully explored going forward. Turns out a step away from home is a step in the right direction after all.
Rating: 7/10
A Different Life is out now via MNRK Music.
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