While there are lots of bands out there making earnest and emotionally charged music, none of them are able to capture little moments in time quite like
the Wonder Years
, who take listeners on another trip down memory lane with their fourth album
The Greatest Generation
. Where their last album,
Suburbia I've Given You All and Now I'm Nothing
, captured the tiny dramas happening just beneath the surface of a town, this album finds the band turning their focus inward to deliver a heartfelt treatise on the pains of growing up. The album isn't so much about getting older as it is about the choices we all have to make and live with, capturing each songs subject as they not only examine the paths they've taken to get to where they are, but the paths they wish they could have taken as they curse themselves for their own failings. Combining the infectious likability of their bittersweet pop-punk with the these kinds of universal concepts,
are a band that continue to prove themselves to be both easy to like and hard to ignore as they convert the kinds of life-changing moments we all experience into yet another wonderfully honest and earnest album. If you're a fan of autumnal pop that wears its heart on its sleeve as it shouts its feelings out to anyone who will listen and you're not a fan of these guys,
is here to realign your priorities for you. ~ Gregory Heaney