A Day To Remember - Common Courtesy (2013) [Gorgatz]

A Day To Remember - Common Courtesy (2013) [Gorgatz]



- I N F O -

About six months ago, when A Day To Remember were kicking off the Right Back At It Again tour, their resident photographer Adam Elmakias popped into the RS offices to catch up. Back then, ‘Common Courtesy’ was still very much in legal limbo, and his words, as the band put to him were, “You’re photographing the end of our band.” At that point, the band themselves genuinely seemed to think that ‘Common Courtesy’ would never see the light of day.

Fast-forward six months, and on October 08, 2013, ‘Common Courtesy’ hit inboxes across the globe (at precisely 5.37am if you want to be picky). After a few listens, there could be no clearer message than this: A Day To Remember are anything but done.

Kicking off with a skate punk riff that breaks into Jeremy McKinnon’s vitriolic ‘Fuck Yeah!’ like a demon risen from slumber, ‘City Of Ocala’ arrives as if the last three years never happened. A pretty cut-and-dry homage to their hometown, “You had another thing coming if you were sleeping on us,” says it all. ‘Right Back At It Again’ follows – yep, the song we’ve ALL been listening to in that B-rate YouTube recording – and in full Andrew Wade / Chad Gilbert glory it sounds absolutely thunderous. It’s unmistakably the ‘All I Want’ of ‘Common Courtesy’, and that “BRACE FOR IMPACT!” mosh call is going to set venues alight once everyone’s got the words down.

‘Sometimes You’re The Hammer, Sometimes You’re The Nail’ introduces their harder sound with Jeremy’s coarse verses showing for the first time just how much he’s got to give this time around. It’s also the first point where his thinly-veiled digs at the label that almost didn’t let this record happen come to light – interpret it how you want, but lines like “God help those who help themselves, and forget about everyone else,” or “You’re all about you, and it’s my fast track to an early grave,” later on in ‘The Document Speaks For Itself’, say everything necessary.

Interestingly, the pace is broken up by a couple of slower numbers this time around – the acoustic led ‘I’m Already Gone’ is well-aligned ahead of the scathing ‘Violence (Enough Is Enough)’, and later, ‘I Surrender’ dishes out *feelings* left, right and centre, before the abrasive ‘Life Lessons Learned The Hard Way’ hits back with full force. While ADTR have always excelled when taking the softer approach (see ‘If It Means A Lot To You’ from ‘Homesick’), this is the first time they’ve incorporated that corner of their sound into the thread of an album’s structure, and it works. As a result, ‘Common Courtesy’ isn’t just a relentless onslaught of breakdowns and choruses; it’s got defined peaks and troughs that should shut the mouths of anyone who’s ever doubted their malleability.

What’s been most exciting for us with ‘Common Courtesy’, though, is the fact that everyone – press, fans, and we’re betting even some of the band’s family – will be hearing it for the very first time today. Aside from putting out ‘Violence (Enough Is Enough)’ last December, there’s been no leak, no pre-release stream, no 30-second teasers to soften the impact of these 53 minutes on first listen. And while we might all be caught up in this bubble of excitement right now, when it passes and we’ve all had some time to sit with it, one thing will still remain true: ‘Common Courtesy’ is not the end of this band. If anything, it’s their new beginning.

The law is a complicated thing, but listening to music is not. Listening to music is easy. So even though you might not be interested in learning the ins and outs of A Day To Remember’s ongoing lawsuit with (former?) label Victory Records, you can instead digest something much more straightforward: The band’s new album, Common Courtesy. And in the face of two years of drama surrounding the release of this record, it seems like an important time to remind the Internet that years down the road, people won’t remember that a band was once in a lawsuit with its label – but the record, and these songs, will be remembered. The record lasts forever.

That’s a good thing for A Day To Remember in this case. Common Courtesy is an easy step up from its predecessor, What Separates Me From You, and sees the Ocala, FL-based quintet continuing to become the best at what it does. Which is to say, play pop-punk interlaced with breakdowns interlaced with screamy mosh calls...whatever that genre is called. Is "easycore" a thing? Was it ever a thing? I don’t really care.

Common Courtesy is an apt title for this album. Throughout its 13 songs and 54 minutes (!), vocalist Jeremy McKinnon chronicles the last three years of his band’s collective life. Actually, the lyrics quite often reminisce on the band’s beginnings – from the opening "City of Ocala" to the closing "I Remember," there isn’t a shortage of tour stories or memories of the band’s early years. There is, of course, plenty of vitriol directed at Tony Brummel, who allowed this to be a thing, so yeah. Another theme on the record is demanding respect – whether this is aimed at Victory Records directly or an army of "haters" or, whatever, maybe everyone in the universe, it’s certainly something that is touched upon multiple times throughout Common Courtesy.

A Day To Remember’s rise to success has been formulaic: Equal parts pop-punk, pop melody and screamy metalcore have been combined on every ADTR release so far and Common Courtesy doesn’t stray from that path. It does, however, see the band perfecting the genre that it basically created for itself – the poppy parts are poppier, the heavy parts are heavier and the mosh calls are moshier. The riff in "Sometimes You’re The Hammer, Sometimes You're The Nail" is, like, totally head-bangy while tracks like "Best Of Me," "Life @ 11" (c’mon with that title) and "I Surrender" are firmly placed into the "pop-punk" category of things and shine there. If you remove the breakdowns and screamy screams, A Day To Remember would actually be a pretty damn good pop-punk band, and for that reason, Common Courtesy is worth a spin even if you’re not a metalcore fan.

It’s a difficult thing for a reviewer to get his head out of his own ass and see the bigger picture sometimes. I really hate the “mosh calls” that this band prides itself on – the "BRACE FOR IMPACT!!" roar in "Right Back At It Again" pretty much ruins that track for me and the "NO FUCKING RESPECT!" yell in "The Document Speaks For Itself" (truly a gem of a song title) pretty much accomplishes the same endgame. And minute-long breakdowns never really feel "necessary," do they? But, like, while we’re talking about respect again, I’m pretty capable of seeing the bigger picture in this case: A Day To Remember is the biggest band in the world playing this genre of music and they have firmly planted their collective foot as being the best at it.

Every single fan of this band is going to eat this record up. They’re going to listen to it for months on end without listening to anything else. It’s going to be their album of the damn year. There’s isn’t any beautiful poetry to be found on this record, there isn’t any revolutionary new musicianship and that’s not the point. Maybe I’m not going to spin this record constantly in my spare time so I can mosh in my living room...but disrespect A Day To Remember? After telling a record label with a documented history of treating its bands like shit to fuck off, and after releasing an album that’s going to help it continue its dominance in its genre? Disrespect a band after that? Not me. I hope you sell a zillion records and use that money to buy more horses in Ocala, A Day To Remember.

Even without releasing any new music in three years, ADTR is currently playing to arenas across the country. Their last two albums have sold half a million records combined in the United States. Kids buy stupid basketball shorts from them at every show. A Day To Remember is nothing if not a freight train of an entity. It’s a powerhouse. In "City," McKinnon sings, "This is our corner of the world," and while he's not actually talking about the genre in which his band resides, he might as well be. With Common Courtesy...love it or hate it as you will...A Day To Remember is getting started all over again. And the album ensures that this band hasn't yet seen the peak of its popularity.

- T R A C K L I S T -

01. City of Ocala
02. Right Back At It Again
03. Sometimes You’re The Hammer, Sometimes You’re The Nail
04. Dead & Buried
05. Best of Me
06. I’m Already Gone
07. Violence (Enough Is Enough)
08. Life @ 11
09. I Surrender
10. Life Lessons Learned The Hard Way
11. End Of Me
12. The Document Speaks For Itself
13. I Remember

Format: 320k mp3
Style: Post-Hardcore
Additional: Alternative
Country: USA
Size: 125.94 MB