New Found Glory - Listen Up!

Its been decades since NEW FOUND GLORYs likeness was chiseled onto pop-punks Mount Rushmore, but as the Coral Springs, Florida, quartet approach their landmark 30th anniversary,they still have a lot to say. LISTEN UP!, their 11th studio album and firstfor Pure Noise Records, stands as a testament to resilience, shaped by guitarist Chad Gilberts ongoing battle with an aggressive metastatic cancer. Its the same full-hearted sentiment that colored their 2023 acoustic EP, Make The Most Of It, here delivered in three-minute bursts of the bands trademark pop-punk sound: the shiny melodies that launched them onto TRL in the early 2000s, the ghosts of the tight-knit punk and hardcore scenes they came up in as teenagers.Its the style thats made NFG a multigenerational affair, as era-defining tracks from gold andplatinum albums like 2000s New Found Glory, 2002s Sticks And Stones and 2004s Catalyst get the same fervent live response as the fan-favorite collection of covers like Kiss Me and Let It Go. The band has come a long way from their humble South Florida beginnings, asdetailed on the Listen Up! stand out Beer And Blood Stains, a nostalgic riff-factory detailing the bands early battle scars at local clubs, where danger meant more than catching a stray elbowin the swirl of a circle pit. Looking back, was it fun or crime? Pundik muses on the track before elevating the albums simple-yet-profound mission statement: Its good to be alive.