Album Review: The Friday Night Boys - Off The Deep End

Late last year I labelled The Friday Night Boys as one to keep an eye on this year. 6 months on and there debut you full length is about to released. I'll admit I've become tired of the style of music the Farifax, Virginia 4-piece play; cleanly produced pop-rock, however this somehow manage to charm me in places.

Opening track, 'Permanent Heartbreak' starts off with light guitar; playing; even though it sounds too much like a Jimmy Eat World intro, before storming into full force pop-punk mode with quirky electro bits. For those fans of the band, it is what you expect and then some.

Unlike the bands previous work, the production is more smoother and even more poppy. Songs like 'Love Letter', 'Stuttering' and 'Suicide Sunday' back this statement up well, with catchy choruses, that might stick in your head for awhile and are built for radio airplay.

They soon slow things down with a soothing ballad ('Finding Me Out') which seems a bit generic but at the same time charming. Whilst 'Can't Take That Away' is a sickly acoustic number which is likely to make the bands young female fans swoon.

Nevertheless the band know how to have a good time with the electronic-driven, fast paced 'How I Met Your Mother' and they also know how to rock as 'Hollow' shows, one of the albums more edgier yet catchy tracks.

'Molly Makeout' is one of the stand out tracks with its simple structure and simple pop lyrics proves to be an easy winning combination and 'Unforget You' follows a similar structure with the standard pop-punk lyrical theme of young love heartbreak.

The record closes on an electro overload with 'Sorry I Stole Your Gurl', with its synth-led melody and vocoder-affected vocals makes for somewhat uncomfortable listening but at the same time manages to make you smile.

'Off The Deep End' does has it good moments and The Friday Night Boys definitely have got great skills to write a 3 minute pop song and this has plenty of them. The Friday Night Boys have got all the characteristics and support to stand out in a crowd of a genre that has became overloaded, generic and predicatable.

However this isn't The Friday Night Boys' problem, they're just four young guys having fun and writing good, harmless songs. The downfall of this record is that at times it seems too clean and too poppy, this makes uneasy to listen to in places. Nevertheless The Friday Night Boys have written a record to fulfill their purpose; a band who perform songs ranging from summery pop-punk to acoustic ballads to synth-led pop.

I can safely say that The Friday Night Boys are still one to watch out for but it's likely they soon won't be hard to find.

3/5

'Off The Deep End' by The Friday Night Boys is released through Fueled By Ramen/Photo Finish/The Party Scene on June 9th.

More details on The Friday Night Boys can be found here.

'Off The Deep End' by The Friday Night Boys can be pre-ordered here.

Sean Reid