A Day To Remember – What Separates Me From You

A Day To Remember pride themselves on their ability to merge different styles into one cohesive unit. Their unique mix of hardcore and pop-punk has been credited as the key to their success. They draw from all their different influences and hope that fans of all the various genres will converge on it. It’s a good prospect in theory and does work in some aspects; but in my eyes it just makes the album feel uneven.

The album comes barrelling off the start with Sticks and Stone. A guttural scream opens the album, soon joined double bass kick and some heavy hardcore riffage that Victory Records is known for. Front man Jeremy McKinnon has the right set of pipes for this time of music – it’s just not for me. I can still respect it though, until they slow it down, throw in the pop and singing vocals and go for a complete three-sixty with the chorus. I may not like the hardcore but at least it has its merits, the inclusion of the pop-punk chorus feels out of place, forced and uneven; taking away from the power of the album before it even began to grow.

Most of the songs aren’t that bi-polar, as they normally stick to one style or another for each song but the individual songs shift between the two on a regular basis. The first realization of that comes through onIt’s Complicated – the first true pop-punk song of the album; and a pretty damn good pop-punk song at that. McKinnon shows that he’s able to deliver melodic vocals like Jordan Pudnik and the fact that he can stretch his vocals to the two sides of the spectrum is incredibly impressive.  It’s a mix of Set Your Goals, Veara and, in some ways, New Found Glory (and yes, Chad Gilbert produced this) and I’m pleasantly surprised with the results.

The problem is: I don’t like the hardcore stuff.

I like the pop-punk songs, because they’re not overly poppy and have a bit of a gruffness to them; but I don’t like the hardcore songs. And that, right away, writes off half of the album’s songs for me. While I’ll definitely be ripping Better Off This Way, All Signs Point To Lauderdale, Out Of Time and If I Leave to my iPod, the other half won’t make the cut.

Hardcore fans will probably be in the other boat – writing off the songs I enjoy and devouring the ones I skip; and that’s A Day To Remember’s greatest downfall. By trying to please everyone, they don’t fully please anyone.