Yellowcard

Lights and Sounds (Capitol)
by Scott Hefflon

For this style (indie pop that turned polished and major, now playing during shitty teen dramas), I still like Yellowcard and The All-American Rejects. While it’s formulaic mainstream pop, there’s still room for creativity in the absolute predictableness of it, and that’s what saves these two bands. For me, anyway. Some people (lots of them) love this stuff without thinking, lots of people knee-jerk against anything remotely like this without thinking, and both groups oughtta try actually listening, ya know?

The guitars are “harder” this time out, and while “Waiting Game” and the closer have string cheese, gone are the violin bits that, uh, kinda separated Yellowcard from every other chipper boy band. Luckily, as I justified, er, said, Yellowcard somehow writes and performs songs that don’t make me leap out of my chair and smash the CD into little pieces like their “peers.”

So yeah, anthemic and cute, feel-good and safely testing the waters of other safe genres (a hint of Ban Folds here, the ballad there, the mandatory Bruce Hornby Midwestern tinkle, and a little flirtation with a “return to roots” punk styling), but I supported Yellowcard when they were on Lobster, and until they completely stop tweaking their sound and style and conform to the formula without exception, I’ll continue to support them.
(www.capitolrecords.com)