Four Year StrongRise or Die Trying (10 Year Anniversary)

2007 was a year where pop-punk started growing up and expanding it’s range as a genre, notably infusing many of the outside trends of the time resulting in some mainstream attention. Fall Out Boy had dropped their chart-topping Infinity on High, Paramore had broken into the pop-culture sphere—spotlighting females in the scene, and bands such as All Time Low and A Day to Remember were beginning to penetrate the market with their label debuts. But underneath all of this hype, a bearded group of guys named Four Year Strong, who looked like they could be All Time Low’s fathers, released a cutting-edge debut record that married being both relentlessly heavy and playfully joyous together more seamlessly than anyone thought was possible.

MORE: Read Ecca Vandal’s debut album review here / Misstiq: Piano cover of Make Them Suffer’s Threads.

The (then) 5-piece pushed the pop-punk to it’s very limits on Rise or Die Trying to the extent that you either were engulfed by their genius, or saw them as total goofballs. It was not everyday that an album this cartoonish and sporadic found its way into the genre, so it’s lack in mainstream appeal is understandable. But Four Year Strong were not just in it for shock value, because in order to pull off a record of this style you have to bring a certain level of proficiency as musicians, which was delivered in spades between the magnificent interplay between the guitars and forcefully powered drumming that doesn’t slow down across the 11 tracks. They accelerate through blazing riffs with Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Hell and Beatdown in the Key of Happy and blending them with ear-candy hooks specifically on the highlight Abandon Ship or Abandon All Hope, creating the hyperactive mixture of what would be referred to as easycore.

The (then) 5-piece pushed the pop-punk to it’s very limits on Rise or Die Trying to the extent that you either were engulfed by their genius, or saw them as total goofballs.

The initial impact of such manic songwriting came off as a bit much for some pop-punkers at the time. This trepidation from people towards their music was only reinforced by their geek-rock proclivities brought about by the band’s charming love for synth, particularly on the jumpy Prepare to be Digitally Manipulated and Bada Ping with a Pipe. But overtime, the initial eccentricity of the record began to settle with fans as they took the bands dynamic sensibilities. When the group toned things down both lyrically and musically, the memorable sing-along anthems shined through with Catastrophe and their big hit Heroes Get Remembered, Legends Never Die. They knew they could write those winning bangers, but they wanted to push it further, and over the years people began to take to it more and more.  

Four Year Strong definitely shook the underground with this release in some way, shape or form (pun intended if you get it). 10 years later, in a changed landscape with easycore finding a place in the scene, we can revisit this album and celebrate it purely on it’s achievements in songwriting, musicianship and inventiveness. It still holds up today as one of the wildest and most thrilling listens in pop-punk.

STANDOUT TRACKS: Abandon Ship or Abandon All Hope, Heroes Get Remembered/Legends Never die, Men Are from Mars/Women Are from Hell, Beatdown in the Key of Happy
STICK THIS NEXT TO: Set Your Goals, The Wonder Years, Motion City Soundtrack