ALBUM REVIEW: Identity Crisis – WSTR

Whether you love it or you hate it, it is difficult to deny the infectious power pop punk can have when it’s done right. The huge choruses and the emotionally charged lyrics that sing of hatred for your hometown, lost love and all the angst on formative years combined with bouncy riffs and buckets of energy can be a real winning combination. That is until the blueprint is attached to vapid and hollow tunes that don’t feel at all crafted but rather thrown together, kind of like the new WSTR record Identity Crisis.

Liverpool’s own WSTR were once a scrappy young band who were immediately labelled as cookie cutter as they come, but despite this still carved themselves out a position within the booming British scene through sheer grit alone, touring relentlessly with six songs for their formative years. Following on with their debut, the band developed a style that was more punk than pop but captured the casual heart of pop punk really quite well. Now enter Identity Crisis, the sophomore album from the young band and an album that seems to dump off the attitude of old and bring in shiny, pastel coloured pop instead, with varying results.

The first thing that will be immediately noticeable is how clean and punchy Identity Crisis sounds, easily one of its best features. Lead single Bad to the Bone is the championing highlight of the record, with a catchy chorus and bouncy riffs being boosted by the crystal clean production to great effect. As catchy as some of the songs are though, it doesn’t detract from the vapid lyrics and how pointless feeling that comes with them. There just doesn’t seem to be anything of substance on the record, which immediately puts things on the back foot.

The album feels childish, which seems to be a real step back considering the band had the attitude of a rebellious young adult in their earlier work. Now it would appear WSTR are producing the brain dead musings of The Latest, which has one of the laziest and grating choruses to be released this year. Taking the best elements of their contemporaries, WSTR seem to just write decent songs and then let themselves down with the content of said songs, simply going for surface level enjoyment and refusing to give listeners anything real to sink their teeth into. Silly Me feels like it’s trying to break the mould, sounding more carefully constructed and giving Sammy Clifford the chance to prove himself as a decent vocalist, even if the vocal melody feels shoehorned and forced to fit like a square peg in a circular hole.

All of this might come from the success that NECK DEEP have seen over recent years, and their shift from punk sensibilities to more pop sounds seeing them gain more popularity. WSTR feel like they’re desperate to catch up, and also that they’re not just the band that missed the boat. The out of place keyboards on the otherwise passable Fling are a prime example, as the quartet throw everything they can at the album seemingly for the sake of it, just to try and add layers. The second half of the song shows real signs of quality writing, the chorus is the best kind of ear worm and when the band get going they really show signs of the band they can become, but it’s a passing moment rather than a winning triumph.

WSTR feel like a band that came late to the boom of a genre and are now trying to catch up to the leaders they were compared to at the start. Over their debut Skrwd EP and Red, Green and Inbetween they were seemingly becoming a real alternative from some of the more try hard entries into the genre for true fans who unashamedly enjoyed the tropes when they were done well. What the band have done on Identity Crisis is trade some of that in for easily accessible and insipid lyrical content combined with a real childish attitude that feels like a step back from what they were before. There are moments where they prove themselves to not be a write off, but those moments are surrounded by forgettable and boring songs that won’t even perk you up on a bad day.

Rating: 3/10

Identity Crisis is out now via Hopeless Records.

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