Review: Dan Maynard
Here we are in the year 2026, closing in on 30 years of the Floridian pop punk veterans New Found Glory, and the boys are back once again with their eleventh studio album, Listen Up! It’s fun, it’s uplifting, it’s caring, and it’s punk. It is a true to the note New Found Glory album at its finest. It’s been a crazy few years for the band, most notably guitarist Chad’s cancer diagnosis, but rather than breaking them apart, it’s only made them sit down and pour the pain, the happiness, and everything in between into what has become Listen Up!
Opening track Boom Roasted opens the album with its big punk rock guitar intro accompanied by huge drums that lead us perfectly into a verse that feels very reminiscent of an early 2000s pop punk track while still feeling incredibly relevant; it is just proof that pop punk is not dead. The chorus encompasses everything New Found Glory is known for: catchy vocals and rhythmic guitars that took me right back to Sticks and Stones.
100% follows up next, once again hitting with a massive guitar riff, which is a huge focus on the overall album. Try to find a track on this album that doesn’t have a huge riff in it, because you won’t. Laugh it Off and A Love Song follow the same suit with big riffs and catchy choruses. Beer and Blood Stains may very well be my favorite track off the album. It is a song that feels like a tribute to the band’s career and the fans alike. For a generation of fans dating back upwards of 30 years, most of us in our 40s now, it feels like a look back on all the years that have been our lives, all summed up into one epic song with a big chorus, a chanting bridge for the crowd, and quite possibly the most positive punk hardcore breakdown you’ll ever hear.
Another standout is Treat Yourself, once again transporting us back nearly 30 years to the earlier days with its punk driven drums and that old school skate punk feel lead guitar. This song would have fit perfectly on a Tony Hawk soundtrack, and I mean that as the highest compliment. Dream Born Again is the love ballad of the album, You Got This might have the catchiest vocal harmony on the record, and Frankenstein’s Monster closes out the whole playlist while keeping to that old school 2000s punk feel and a big ring out to close it all up.
Listen Up!, as I said earlier, is proof that pop punk isn’t dead. It doesn’t have an end date, and there is a reason why it still holds a place in today’s music scene. Pop punk sings from the heart, pop punk knows what it is, and New Found Glory are one of the few bands that can sit at the top of the totem pole as true veterans and true kings of the genre. Listen Up! is as catchy as it gets, it is wall to wall full of live anthems. Pick a song and it could be the band’s next single. It could be the song that opens or closes a show, and it could be the song that is sung as loudly from the crowd as from Jordan for years to come. This is, as they say, an instant classic.
LISTEN UP! – DUE OUT FEBRUARY 20
STREAM – https://purenoiserecs.lnk.
STORE LINK – https://purenoiserecs.lnk.
