ALL TIME LOW: 'Nothing Personal' (Hopeless)
The five steps to being in a successful pop punk band: 1. Learn chords A, E and G. 2. Find three fresh-faced friends to play basic rhythm guitar, bass and drums. 3. Write some lyrics about your perpetual struggles with the opposite sex. 4. Harmonise said lyrics. 5. Straighten your band’s hair, and don’t forget to take your shirts off at every possible opportunity to get your teenage audience wet.
All Time Low have clearly taken this formula as gospel; ‘Nothing Personal’, their third effort, ticks every last box needed to produce a smash hit. This is a ridiculously infectious record, with hooks that come thick and fast, catching you unawares with their simplicity. The swaggering jaunt of ‘Stella’ and the superlative melodies in ‘Lost in Stereo’ seem gloriously familiar, their drum solo breakdowns and stadium handclaps working effortlessly to make you feel like you’re in the company of old friends. The record never really veers from this recipe, moving from one note perfect pop jamboree to the next, reassuring its youthful target audience that they’ll never be without a huge chorus to bellow their little lungs out to.
This is decidedly polished stuff, coated with a sparkling post-production sheen that ensures that no note is out of place, or vocal off key. Unfortunately, this is a double-edged sword: on the one hand, the gloss makes the album bold, like a series of primary colours photographed in stark close-up. ‘Weightless’ and ‘Walls’ are pop writ large, full of the sort of memorable melodies that made labels like Drive-Thru so successful. However, the polish is so sugar sweet that it becomes rather sickly. ‘Nothing Personal’ is a monochrome album, rarely breaking away from its clean-cut, no frills formula. The perfectly in sync, auto-tuned harmonies and inoffensively predictable guitar chops struggle to retain your interest after a while, and when the band attempt to mix things up with the occasional ballad, it feels like they’re trying too hard, overloading us with hyperbolic heartbreak.
All Time Low could do with being a little rougher around the edges. ‘Nothing Personal’ is undoubtedly a well-written, carefully crafted record with a strong ear for melody. However, its biggest strength is also its principal weakness. It is essentially a ‘how to’ of contemporary pop punk, containing twelve identikit hookfests that rob the band of an identity of their own. Sure, it has a whole hell of a lot of style, but sadly, not a great deal of substance. (6/10)
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