The Boys of Summer: What It’s All About

The Boys of Summer: What It’s All About
The Boys of Summer are an enigma to me. The Michigan group’s debut album, What It’s All About is seemingly influenced by many of my least favorite musical trends of the last decade yet there is something likable about the group.
The press release for the group compares them to Jimmy Eat World, Angels & Airwaves, and Blink 182. That really pigeonholes their sound pretty well. The band is consistently frolicking somewhere between pop punk and emo. The Blink 182 comparison is the most obvious. The Boys of Summer have two vocalists, much like Blink; One of the group’s two vocalists sounds exactly like Tom DeLonge which just fuels the fire. The song’s lyrical content mostly seem to revolve around relationships. Songs like “Is She Fiction” is pretty self-explanatory and more interestingly titled songs like “Maps And Magnets” end up containing lyrical gems like “our lips connect like magnets/your’s positive, mine’s negative”.
Perhaps the most alarming song is “Love Like an Arms Race”. When making poppy emo, you want to stay away from anything that will get you compared to Fall Out Boy; yet the band seems to welcome with open arms the comparison by writing a song with “Arms Race” in the title. It’s not like writing songs about arms races is a common thing in music. The only song I could think of that has that phrase in the title is “This Ain’t a Scene, It’s an Arms Race” and now The Boys of Summer’s track. Despite aping Fall Out Boys’ metaphor, the track’s piano-laden punk ballad feel works well. It reminds me of Something Corporate.
It seems like the odds are piled against any type of critical acclaim heading The Boys of Summer’s way yet there is a certain “je ne sais pas quoi” about their music. I think its a combination of things that gets the album a passing grade from me. The band’s name is the Boys of Summer and they are releasing their album at the beginning of the summer. The hot summer days and the album’s poppy attitude just perfectly mesh. If this album was released six months from now, I would probably give it something under a 5.0/10 but it just feels so right for right now.
Rating: 6.9/10
MP3: The Boys of Summer “Love Like an Arms Race”
Buy: iTunes