Sound Off | The Wonder Years play addictive pop-punk

Sometimes, an album just hits you. You don't know why it happens, or how it happens, but you can't deny it. It starts off slow and unassuming. You listen to it once through—maybe in your car while you're driving around, or maybe on your iPod as you walk across campus—and you don't think much of it. But you find yourself listening to it again and again.

Before long, songs start to sound familiar, and you start to notice movements within the record. Soon, you get to the point where you can hear the beginning of the next song in your head before the song you're listening to has finished. You start putting the album on every chance you get, relishing the comfort of hearing the opening lyrics once more. Eventually, you become totally incapacitated, singing choruses out loud at random times, drumming violently on your desk along with the beat inside your head. It's a rare occurrence—once every couple of years, maybe—but every so often it happens again. Every so often, an album lands in your lap and makes its presence known. The Upsides by The Wonder Years is one of those albums.

Before I go any further, let me make a disclaimer. The Wonder Years isn't anything like the music I usually promote in this column. This isn't an indie rock record or East Coast hip hop single. The Wonder Years is an unabashed, unashamed pop-punk band. That's right, pop-punk. Crunchy guitars; catchy choruses; high-pitched, fast-paced guitar licks; and vocals that don't hold anything back. They're fast, raw, angry and they don't really give a shit what you think about them. I know what you're thinking, but trust me on this. Sometimes you have to forget all your pretensions, let go, and surrender yourself to the hook.

The Upsides is hands down the best record I've heard in a long time because it's completely unafraid to be honest. You can tell from listening to this record that these aren't the kind of guys who would nix a drum fill or a song lyric because they were worried about what other people think. The lyricism is almost frighteningly translucent, offering a surprisingly optimistic message about post-college life for generation Y: Yes, you're tired, broke, lost and dejected, but don't worry, things will get better. On several occasions throughout the album, frontman Dan "Soupy" Campbell sings the phrase "I'm not sad anymore" at the top of his lungs, presenting a terse, powerful summation of what The Upsides is all about. His voice is so tangible on the record, you can almost see him singing live in a basement somewhere in suburban Pennsylvania, held up by sweaty fans, mic held close to his mouth, his face scrunched up as his voice starts to run out of breath.

Your average, run-of-the-mill, commercial, pop-punk record has at least four or five songs with catchy choruses. The Upsides scoffs at this. Every section of this record is undeniably, unbelievably hooky. Every chorus, every verse and every bridge will get stuck in your head after four listens. There is not one wasted moment, not one lyric or guitar riff that doesn't fit. The percussion is energetic, yet restrained. The bass makes itself known only when it has to. The guitars bite and squeal with the right amount of distortion, dropping out when you'd least expect them to and coming back in when you thought they would. And the vocals are superb—never whiney or screamy, always bursting with energy and conviction.

Campbell's got a lot to say on the The Upsides, and not a lot of time or space to say it, so he dispenses his brilliant nuggets faster than you can process them. He's got a lot of grievances and a lot of axes to grind, but as I said before, this is a positive album. One minute he's capturing that quintessential teenage angst with gems like "Suburbs have abandoned me/I've had the same best friend since '93/I call he's not answering, no/I can't get comfortable on my own street." The next minute, he's voicing the frustrated interior monologue that goes through everyone's head when they're at a bad party, as he avoids "the girls-gone-wild B-team" and bemoans how he "ended up here again/While the kid with the dreads/Tells me he's smarter on acid."

The best moments are when Campbell stands against this anger, even offering a restrained hope. "I'm looking for the upsides/To these panic attack nights," he sings, admitting that even in the worst situations, there are things to look forward to. For all its depressing, post-adolescent themes, The Upsides is filled with images of spring arriving, fountains being turned on and friends finding comfort in their own company. Campbell is probably the only lyricist I know of who truly captures the feelings of people my age: the paradoxical mixture of ingrained cynicism and guarded optimism.

The Upsides opens and closes with near identical lyrics. On the first few seconds of the record, Campbell sings, "I'm not sad anymore/I'm just tired of this place." And the last lyric of the record, repeated over and over by a chorus of voices, states "I'm not sad anymore/I'm just tired of this place/If this year would just end/I think we'd all be ok." Those last two lines, with their subtle positivity, are why I can't stop listening to The Upsides. Pick up this record. You won't regret it.

—Martin Bergman '12 is a Jewish studies major writing a bi-weekly column on recently released albums.