ATP! Album Review: Simple Plan – Get Your Heart On - The Second Coming! EP

The crux of Simple Plan's lasting appeal is, perhaps, best summed up on the second track of their new EP Get Your Heart On - The Second Coming! (essentially a collection of reworked leftovers from their last album). On career standout "The Rest of Us," frontman Pierre Bouvier claims he doesn't "hit the notes perfectly when he tries to sing." Seconds later, he states - with a charmingly shaky confidence - "we do it better than the rich and the fabulous."

Over the course of their 15-year career, the Canadian five-piece have strictly maintained their identity as, above all else, a strikingly well-executed pop/rock band. The only "punk" credentials to their name (aside from their ties to Reset) rest comfortably in the sheer resilience of their persona as young, approachable, wide-eyed pop craftsmen. As Bouvier states on "The Rest of Us," he certainly doesn't have the best voice in modern pop music, but what does that matter?

While their competition often seems to be merely pretending to have personal investment in the subject matter of their songs (angst, young love, melodramatic social isolation), the gentlemen of Simple Plan have built an unbreakable wall of authenticity around their work, making them somewhat "critic-proof." Some will continue to write these guys off as low-brow, but that's not fair. There's an art to making songs like this actually work, and Simple Plan have mastered that art by adding a healthy helping of realness - an element often missing from younger bands attempting the same formula perfected by Simple Plan.

5/5

Trace William Cowen

Get Your Heart On - The Second Coming! EP will be released on December 3rd via Atlantic Records.