New Found Glory - Not without a fight

Epitaph Records . 03/10/2009 . written by Oliver . genre: Pop Punk . format: CD

New Found Glory was formed in 1997 by former members Jordan Pundik and Steve Klein. After a few line-up changes they recruited Cyrus Bolooki on drums, Chad Gilbert (ex-singer for Shai Hulud, now lead-guitarist) and Steve Klein (guitar). I read a funny fact about Steve: The band once dropped him, because he was not good enough on guitar. But they picked him up again after he learned how to play better. Since their early beginnings the band has not changed its constillation. When Jordan got asked about ten years of keeping by the same band constillation he answeared: "You fight with your mom. You don't hang out with her all the time. But you love her! You're never going to hate her. We're family. It might sound cliche, but that's what it is." After having releases out on Fiddler and Eulogy records the band signed with Drive-Thru and afterwards with MCA/ Universal records. New Found Glory came from the Hardcore genre - their classic release on Eulogy records and having a guitarist in the band, who sung for Shai Hulud - makes this thesis pretty clear. The hardcore anthem was pretty much to find in the beginnings of the band history: So you found grand back-up-vocals and strong chords that conducted many releases. During the last years the band became more softer and softer. Their last major record release (Coming Home, 2006) was a very slow release with very soft melodies and vocals. In 2007 the band got dropped from Geffen records and so they decided to release more hardcore based music again. On classic Hardcore label Bridge 9 the band released a stunning hardcore EP, called "Tip Of The Iceberg". That EP had nothing in common with their soft Pop-punk releases. Now the band is back with another stunning full lenght release, produced by Mark Hoppus of Blink-182. Mark co-owns the studio with his band mate Travis Barker. The band knew Mark since a very long time. Gilbert explains: "We had no money to make the record so we wanted someone with the confidence to do the album for free and get reimbursed later." When I received their new release "Not Without A Fight" I was pretty stocked about the cover-artwork, which looks like a typical-old-school-hardcore-band cover artwork. On the back of the cover the band is sitting on the stairs, looking like a NY hardcore band. The booklet contains pictures, showing Jordan singing with the fans in the crowd. I guess the band want to show, that they have become much stronger and rawer again. About their music I am happy to state, that their music pretty much differ. So you'll find pretty strong mid tempo songs with great melodies and strong shouts and back up vocals. The new release also contains a killer fast tune, called "Truck Stop Blues", which reminds me a lot to their release classic self-titled release from 2000. I am pretty happy that NFG has decided to become stronger again, but I have to be honest and tell you, that I have already heard better NFG songs. "Not withouth a fight" is a real good release, but somehow I don't feel so well here. Their tunes are strong and attractive again but they wrote better melodies once.

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Rank: (4 out of 5)

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