Face To Face – Laugh Now, Laugh Later

Sometimes all you need is a leader – someone to show you what to do and what can be done. Without that, you wander lost, confused and unsure of what to do. The punk scene has, in a way, been like that lately. Unsure of where to go and spewing out a lot of not-so-good albums; but there’s still hope and that hope comes in the form of Laugh Now, Laugh Later: Face To Face’s seventh studio album and first in nine years.

On it, Face To Face show the world what can be done and what truly solid skate punk sounds like.  Having not been in the studio for close to a decade, you’d think there would be some type of rust with them – but there isn’t. This is a band that has influenced almost every current punk band whether they know it or not and a band like that doesn’t rust up, they just get better with age.

Laugh Now, Laugh Later is a refreshing album for its fast paced tempo, pure honesty and spitting/scathing/sarcastic commentary on the state of the world.  This is good punk played by great musicians and breathes new life into the band and the scene.

Filled to the rim with “woahs” and “hey’s,” Laugh Now, Laugh Later is catchy without being phoned in. There are hooks galore but they deliver those hooks through distortion, grit and speed. Heavier songs like Bombs Away and The Invisible Hand pull from the hardcore handbook while It’s Not All About You and All For Nothing are the perfect pop-punk anthems. In fact, anthems are a good way to describe most of the songs on here. You want to sing along with every moment – from the opening single of Should Anything Go Wrong to the clear highlight in I Don’t Mind and You Don’t Matter.

With Laugh Now, Laugh Later, Face To Face have taken back the punk rock crown from the new crop of Warped bands who are aping on the style. They show what punk is and that it can still be done the right way in 2011 – even if you are overweight, forty-something year olds.