Farewell - Run It Up The Flagpole (Review)

Artist: Farewell
Album: Run It Up The Flagpole
Label: Epitaph Records
Release Date: September 1^st
Genre: Pop Punk/Power Pop
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’Smoke and mir­rors on a van­ity stage,
Assembled for one func­tion.
A cookie cut­ter caf­feinated teen,
Deployed for mass con­sump­tion.
Have you ever wanted some­thing more?
Something dif­fer­ent from the same old sad display?’

Things to note:
1.Farewell hate ‘cookie-cutter-mass-consumption same-old-display van­ity’ bands.
2.Farewell love music.

Run It Up The Flagpole, Farewell’s sec­ond slice of punk-fueled power pop, could be mis­taken for being from the late 90’s. The band recap­tures some­thing nowa­days rare – a recre­ational, care­free atti­tude – alike the spirit pop­u­lar­ized and flaunted by bands such as Blink-182, New Found Glory and Less Than Jake. During the mod­ern neon regime, this aura serves as a nos­tal­gic revival and refreshment.

Providing a smooth and steady intro­duc­tion to Run It Up The Flagpole, is the opener “We All Fall Down.” Filled with youth­ful wis­dom, the song’s vibe and effect is rem­i­nis­cent to that of Blink-182’s “Anthem Part Two” and “Dumpweed.” Little warn­ing is pro­vided lead­ing up to the sin­gle, “Devoid (That’s What I Think About It)”. A fiery, scathing con­dem­na­tion of the state of the scene, lines such as ‘When did rock ‘n’ roll become this fuck­ing fash­ion show’ and ‘some­how sound­ing dif­fer­ent starts to sound the same’ make their feel­ings clear.

Farewell’s great­est improve­ment is in their song­writ­ing. While remain­ing com­plex and per­son­al­ized, a major­ity of songs pur­pose­fully and effec­tively con­vey a story and a mes­sage. The high school ‘karma comes around’ themed “A Collect Call To Arms,” is a per­fect exam­ple of this, as is “Catch-As-Catch-Can” – a vir­tual auto­bi­og­ra­phy, rang­ing from the humor­ous tale of their ‘first punk show’, to the for­ma­tion of the band, to tour­ing and the anx­i­eties ‘mom’ would endure. Awww.

‘Who needs com­mon sense, when we’ve got rock on the radio’

Gleaming with a high school men­tal­ity, “Rock On The Radio” stands out one of the stronger songs, with it’s uncon­strained, rock ‘n’ roll fueled car­ni­val atmos­phere. This theme is main­tained in “Priorities Intact,” where Farewell announce that while they may not be ‘stars’, they love their lives everyday.

Misplacing all opti­mism and adopt­ing a punk ethic with the quick-witted “Drop Dead” and the self-loathing “Expect The Worst,” Run It Up The Flagpole reaches it’s finale with the cau­tious “Take It From Me.” Striving for an effect not too dis­sim­i­lar to that achieved by “We All Fall Down,” this ‘outro’ falls slightly short – how­ever, for some rea­son, we’ll ignore minor mis­takes at this stage (Thanks for the call out guys! – ‘you rinse and repeat your mistakes’)

With eleven tracks of pas­sion filled, sen­ti­ment arous­ing pop & roll, Farewell bridge the gap between the ‘losers’, and the ‘cool kids’, and have sur­passed all expec­ta­tions with Run It Up The Flagpole, while send­ing out the right mes­sages. They play and love music. They real­ize they’re not per­fect, but nonethe­less, they’re happy in eachother’s com­pany and rock ‘n’ roll. ‘The Scene Is Dead’, and in their own words, ‘We’re the guys that the scene for­got’. You’d bet­ter believe you haven’t heard the last of them.

Track Listing:
1. We All Fall Down
2. Devoid (That’s What I Think About It)
3. A Collect Call To Arms
4. Rock On The Radio
5. Sucker Bait
6. Before I Wake
7. Catch-As-Catch-Can
8. Priorities Intact
9. Drop Dead
10. Expect The Worst
11. Take It From Me

Similar To: Blink-182, Valencia, New Found Glory, Hit The Lights

Review by: Denis S.