The Maine – Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop

Throughout the years I’ve gotten a few cool promo items that came along with CDs. For The Fully Down I got this awesome foam devil horns hand, like the number one foam hand in sports but this time a foam hand throwing up the rock horns. For Protest The Hero‘s Fortress, the label gave away condoms with the words “Penetrate My Fortress” scattered across the package. I’ve gotten a few lighters over the years and the occasional other gizmo and gadget too. For The Maine‘s new album, Can’t Stop Won’t Stop, Fearless Records gave away some lip balm. I kind of laughed at it, because while lip balm can be useful at times it also seems fairly safe and tame compared to lighters or condoms as far promo material goes. I figured it would go well with The Maine‘s music: safe, tame, emo-pop that has been parade around the scene for the past few years. I went in ready to rip the CD apart as I figured it would be a generic, polished emo disc. Oddly enough, it wasn’t remotely like what I expected and when Everything I Ask Forcame on I was thrown off guard.

The opening track came as a slap in the face. The Maine were not who I thought they would be. They weren’t the super slick emo-pop that Matt Squire had become known for producing. This wasn’t anotherMayday Parade, All Time Low or Cute Is What We Aim For. It wasn’t horribly painful crap along the lines of Boys Like Girls. Instead, Can’t Stop Won’t Stop is a pop-punk record with a massive emphasis on the pop side of the combo.

There was a certain undeniable hook in the opening song, a bouncy melody and a vocalist that rattled the lyrics off in the same way that Kenny Vasoli of The Starting Line does. The chorus came in and I felt guilty because as the backup vocals added their pipes to the mix I actually started to like the song. This wasn’t the record I was expecting to hear, instead it had slight moments of bands that I actually enjoyed. A poppier version of The Starting Line alongside some Relient K and Rocket Summer. There was even a few seconds of “gang vocals” (although in the only way a pure pop band could deliver them) that sounded like a mix between New Found Glory and Say Anything. The record was poised to be something better than I had hoped. However, by the end of Everything I Ask For, Can’t Stop Won’t Stophad already melted into the background.

No matter how catchy the beat was, Can’t Stop still had no real pulse or identity. There was nothing unique about it and they were never able to really grab you, and the album falls flat because of it. It may not had been the super polished emo-pop that I was expecting, but The Maine just went for another equally overplayed and generic sound; only changing themselves by polishing it out and making it even slicker than before. Throughout the remaining eleven songs, Can’t Stop Won’t Stop only jumped out of the background in three instances. The insanely catchy chorus of Girls Do What They Want stands out because of the power within the background vocals and Time To Go just embeds that Starting Line sound even more, this time leaning towards their Direction era; and on on We’ll All Be…, they throw out some random country influence to grab your attention before they fade out of the speakers for the final time.

Other than that though, Can’t Stop Won’t Stop still ended up being just as forgettable as I imagined, it was just a different type of forgettable.