Four Year Strong - Four Year Strong

Self-titled records are becoming a genre of their own but from the emerging stretch of opener ‘I Hold Myself in Content’ it’s painfully obvious why Four Year Strong have named their fifth studio album after themselves. ‘Four Year Strong’ sees the Massachusetts four-piece at their most refined, eleven tracks that not only succinctly sum up their fourteen year history but confidently remind the world at large that they’ve still got something to offer.

With only a five track EP to their name since 2011’s ‘In Some Way, Shape or Form’, Four Year Strong have had a chance to step outside the looping album cycle and take a long hard look at who and what they are. Their discoveries are proudly scrawled across every inch of ‘Four Year Strong’, an album that isn’t out to make up for lost time but rather treasures every moment available. The clenched fist question of, “What’s the point of living if you’re already dead,” opens the album while closing track ‘Go Down In History’ sees the band raising arms and spirits with the cry of “Live like a time bomb that doesn’t have long, go down in history.”

In between the captivating affirmation of these bookends lies a series of potent anthems. There are nods to the past in the hurried bounce of ‘Eat My Words’ and the scratched glitz of ‘I’m A Big Bright Shining Star’ but they only frame the moment in which Four Year Strong want to exist in. Lead Single ‘We All Float Down Here’, all mighty choruses and crunching guitar, has been screaming their message from the start. “The time is now, It’s ticking away,” they bellow with the same deft attitude that sees their name plastered across the album’s artwork; conviction and assurance, this is something to live by.