Millencolin are a Swedish pop-punk band who formed in 1992. This is their ninth album, which was released in 2019, four years after True Brew.
The opening track SOS kicks off with solid verses, good progression through the pre-chorus and chorus, and then the nice novelty of the choir. But the lyrics let the song down, being unmemorable and strangely negative for Millencolin. How about For Yesterday then? Similar story, with riff-rock elements as good as anything on Home From Home, but the despondent lyrics are a downer.
Nothing is still a sad tale, but there's a much greater sense of empathy rather than negativity, so I quite dig it. Musically it ticks all the boxes too; maybe a metronome wouldn't show that it's actually much faster, but the thrashy opening establishes a great sense of energy that remains throughout the song.
The chorus of Sour Days makes it a bit of a pop ditty, with the drumming being a highlight (especially the double-tap section). My enjoyment of the song is for quite a silly reason: clearly the bridge with lines like "first time will taste like shampoo" reveals that this is a song about kombucha!
The rest of the album goes back to my earlier whingeing about the negative lyrics. Maybe I've got this bee in my bonnet thanks to the Armageddon-themed cover art, but is all just seems so negative. Which is a real shame, since Millencolin have got the whole pop-punk style down to a polished artform, so the instrumentals are all great. Yanny & Laurel is too pessimistic, Do You Want War is very judgemental, Trumpets & Poutine presents a bleak outlook for humanity, and the catchy chorus of Cavemans Land is ruined by the judgemental lyrics. Often when writing these reviews, I'm struggling to second-guess why a particular song is musical bliss for me but something else 99% similar fails to register at all. But in this case, it's very simple, the lyrics are a real downer.
