The Late Review.
“Wait—what’s the last thing you heard?” Rob asked me, as he rattled along some half-sensical storyline. He stopped to ask, because he didn’t recognize the blank confusion on my face; I used to always know what he was talking about.
I never heard Score24’s last release. I didn’t know Rob and Paul had recorded the part of my heart that was missing while I was off dancing with zombies and sewing space suits. So when Rob sent me their 2011 “All or Nothing” tracks, I didn’t know that I was opening up something that could never be closed again.
Right away, I realized it wasn’t a joke; they’d meant what they were playing and singing about and it had been written for reasons other than just putting new music out. Right away, I knew they’d become people they were never able to be within the confines of my narrative, and I was hushed by that thought; the thought that I didn’t know everything there was to know. The intro came into my ears slowly, yet intentionally, and I triple checked the artist name on the file before admitting that the color had run out of my face. This is Score24? It’s the sound they began creating in Tom Denney’s studio, especially the guitars, and right away, I know I’m listening to the only thing I’ll really care about for at least a week. I press repeat, thinking Big Sexy would be proud of them.
I reviewed the entire album. I wrote that “New Beginnings” was obviously the song that will play throughout Score24’s next tour update video. (Am I the only one who wants to see that?) I wrote that “We Will Run” made me feel the way “Skyward Bound” had; like I could do anything because they’d declared they could—because they were about to, at any moment, conquer the world. (I still think they could, and will, along whatever path they want to.) And as expected, I wrote that “Wake Up Baby,” made my eyes grow ever so watery with happy nostalgia before I ran out of the room barefoot, crazy, and unstoppable (also a nostalgic feeling). But in the interest of time, and of McG actually reading this, I’ll only dive into the love I have for “Secret Code.”
Why do lyricists use the same buzz words over and over again? Why does every good song proudly pander repetitions of “baby,” “love,” “home,” and “highway?” Because these words DO buzz. They make ripples of electric shock race through your body without remorse or control. These words, no matter how many times you’ve heard them, can take you to another place—a better place—the place you’d always exist in, if it weren’t for the pestering realities of the progression of time.
I am obsessed with Paul’s voice on this track. It is more than this blog (which became more dedicated to singers’ skinny jeans than their actual voices) ever gave it credit for. There’s something about his voice on this track that doesn’t coax immediate and irrevocable love from me, but simply claims it. There’s an accessible hollowness within the vocals and, though I'm certain I’m walking into an innuendo, I decide I want to live INSIDE the “highway” backups at minute 0:13. This is an immature notion, I know, so if I have to grow up and get serious, I’ll move into the first two lines of the chorus, the “I know” and “so long.” And when I can’t afford that anymore—because a chorus is prime real estate and obviously quite pricey—I choose that kind-of-suburb, but still-sexy spot in the post-bridge melody change of “going through” at 2:37. I have an unhealthy obsession with this song, which is my favorite kind of obsession to have, because it usually means rationality is out the window and some story that’s real silly, or downright stupid, is about to happen. (Dear Diary, the song made me do it.)
I try to think of a way to ask Rob and Paul what each song is written about without hearing anything I don’t want to know. But it’s never worked that way. I don’t remember everything they retell me once I see them again, and it makes me sick to think that most of this lyrical content must be about things I wasn’t right beside them for. I missed them, a fuck ton. And I can’t help but wonder if I had heard these songs, if they’d have brought me back just a little bit sooner.
Did I miss the media-deafening hype that took over social sites when this album came out? Shame on you, former scene kids; I leave for a measly 6 years and you totally let some of their best songs slip through your fingerless gloves. These songs are what our jaded, little emo hearts were whining for. Are whining for. Fuck all the verses about friendship and pizza. Fuck anchor tattoos and softcore breakdowns about how many miles you are from the place you grew up. I want to sing about fucks ups and bad memories; I want to bask in the bridge of something I’ll never have. And I want to do it in the chords of D, G, and A.
This review was late, but intentional. Maybe we all grew up into kids that could keep secrets and get work done . . . or maybe none of us has changed one little bit. Only the next tracks will tell.
...T.
