Upon first hearing You Me At Six a few years back two things immediately occurred to me. Firstly, how the emotion-packed lyrics qua ruined relationships, bitterness and jealousy, the blocky power-chords complete with trebley counter melodies dancing on top, all found a place in the heart of the fourteen year-old emo-kid inside me. Secondly, that You Me At Six were in danger of falling under the heading of ‘generic emo-punk-pop band’, forever to be lost among a heap of similar albums, slowly gathering ‘generic-pop-punk’ status along with bands like Kids in Glass Houses, All Time Low, and Mayday Parade.
Finding their feet in 2007 with the success of debut album Take Off Your Colours, the punk-pop quintet also found a niche in the hearts of every emo-kid with dyed hair, a fringe, and a skate-park, and grew steadily in popularity from there, even nominated twice for Best British Band at the 2008 and 2009 Kerrang awards. Their second album, then, Hold Me Down should show some signs of a more matured band. The question is: does it?
The answer is a grey area. The tracks on the album seem at times to stray away from the ‘Punk-Pop 101’ manual, ditching whiny-yet-heartfelt lyrics for a more punchy, punk feel. In other tracks, it sounds like the band have matured a little, and moved in a more melodic direction; guitars with deeper tones and more intricate melodies. The first track of the album The Consequence kicks off as a more rocky track, sounding like the love-child-song of American Hi-Fi and Taking Back Sunday, whilst Playing the Blame Game moves in another direction, sounding strangely like Paramore might have wandered into the studio and written a few guitar parts.
This, however, is still part of the problem. The influences you can hear straining through Hold Me Down, the likes of American Hi-Fi, Paramore, and Taking Back Sunday can all be found under the same group of emo-esque punk-pop. The question with the new You Me At Six album, for me, was one of whether they would be able to shake off the shackles of the ‘generic punk-pop’ label and produce something fresh.
Unfortunately, this doesn’t seem to be the case. The tracks still melt into a blurry same-ness after a while, and the sound gets lost in the pages of ‘Pop-Punk 101’ before too long. Tracks like Safer to Hate Her and Trophy Eyes seem to be produced from the same song-manual as the last album, and eventually the new tracks get lost in the pop-punk mire along with bands like Hit The Lights, Mayday Parade, All Time Low and Escape the Fate.
That’s not to say that this is a bad thing; the pure energy that explodes through the speakers is enough to lift you off your seat into immediate spontaneous bouncing and head bobbing. As a punk-pop album it’s fair to say that Hold Me Down hits the bullseye. This might perhaps be both its best and worst quality; it is a brilliant work of bouncy, punk-pop music, but is it anything more?
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