The Hum Goes On Forever

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The Upsides through The Greatest Generation is commonly known as The Wonder Years' Depression Trilogy. It was an odyssey that took us from snotty, reference-heavy pop-punk to a mature and thoughtful band trying to process the weight of the world via the geographical and emotional landmarks Dan Campbell dotted throughout his lyrics, his voice ageing in realtime alongside his songwriting from a nasally whine to a more textured, dynamic force. It's not a stretch to view the subsequent three albums as another linked cycle: it's an interpretation suggested by the title The Hum Goes on Forever, stemming from a poem included in the Sister Cities booklet, and the presence thereon of a sequel song to No Closer to Heaven's "Cardinals". Call it the Head Above Water Trilogy: for as dark as Dan Campbell's writing can still be, I can't escape the impression that he's finally clawing towards the light instead of away from it. Much like the fictional-yet-painfully-real Aaron West character he created, Campbell has found something worth fighting for in the form of family: specifically his children, to whom he dedicates the album and names as the reason he doesn't want the world to end.

a b Sacher, Andrew (September 20, 2022). "The Wonder Years on fatherhood, Mark Hoppus, and making a record that's RIYL The Wonder Years". BrooklynVegan . Retrieved September 23, 2022. No matter which group you fall into, The Hum Goes On Forever is going to sit well with the entire pop punk community. But I’ll be honest — the last album I listened to from The Wonder Years was No Closer to Heaven, and while I did enjoy it for awhile, I didn’t feel that punch I loved from their earlier material. That’s why I’m a little nervous about going into the band’s brand new album. I wasn’t sure quite what to expect here. Would I hate it? Would I get bored? I’m definitely a listener that is more familiar with their earlier material — pre-2015. The rest of the pieces fell into place over the following six months in scattered writing conflabs and sessions with Evetts and Will Yip. The level of care behind this drawn out spell of creativity is reflected in the way The Hum Goes on Forever moves – surging from each highpoint in search of another one that says something different about how the Wonder Years came to be where they are today. “If the song makes it through the six of us in a room, it’s always going to be a Wonder Years song,” Cavaliere says. “This record, and how it came together, was us trying to trust that fact and not overthink it. Their catalog’s narrative unity proceeds not only from self-reference, but from the material’s indelible proximity to Campbell’s lived experience. He’s spent nearly two decades cataloguing the ghosts that haunt his family, addiction and mental illness. “I don’t want my children growing up to be anything like me,” he once sang on “Passing Through a Screen Door,” when fatherhood was only a theoretical. “I feel like the people deserve an update,” he told me.

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READ MORE: “Teenagers always need music for solace and inspiration, Joy Division fills that role” Peter Hook on the enduring power of Love Will Tear Us Apart It’s not quite as simple as calling The Wonder Years a pop-punk band anymore, even if they did make their name that way. To many they remain as one of, if not the , greatest pop-punk outfit in the history of the genre. While their output in the early 2010s was definitive, they have since matured and wisened to the point where they’ve transcended the scene that they were once forefathers of. ‘The Hum Goes On Forever’ is the latest instalment from this legendary Lansdale sextet and marks their most complete and accomplished record to date.

The Philadelphia group’s three guitarists join the Zoom call in intervals. Matt Brasch, who plays a Les Paul Studio in tandem with a Kurt Cobain Jaguar, is there early, and when Cavaliere, another Les Paul Studio guy, joins a couple of minutes later the pair are obviously stoked to see each other. “Matt Brasch, long time no see!” Cavaliere says excitedly, having swapped Philly for Atlanta in 2021. The first type of fan is the pop punk kid who uncovered some of their favourite bands today almost a decade ago, along the lines of Man Overboard, The Story So Far, State Champs and of course, The Wonder Years. You wear your pop punk heart on your sleeve, throw pizza parties with your small group of friends every weekend and probably drink way too much beer. Your go-to karaoke song is ‘ My Last Semester‘ and you’ve thrashed Suburbia I’ve Given You All and Now I’m Nothingon your record player so much, you need more than one copy. To summarise, you’re more familiar with the band’s first two LPs than anything else. As the people who have lived through it, I think there’s an interesting energy where there’s the question of your older works being like a different band,” guitarist Casey Cavaliere says. “Every band evolves, right? We wouldn’t have gotten here if we didn’t have those albums where it was more about the energy and how fast we can play. The total pressing quantity is 15,000 LPs with 5,000 7”. The most current list of variants is as follows. Thor’s Hammer isn’t just a curio, though. There’s a lot of gnarly stuff on The Hum Goes on Forever. Over the years, Brasch, Cavaliere and Steinborn have become dialled in to the emotional squalls of Campbell’s writing. As he has developed further as a storyteller, scratching away the pop-punk veneer to reveal lyrics that meld Craig Finn-style parables with vivid first-person writing, his bandmates have found ways to adapt, retreating to a whisper one moment before bringing out the blood and thunder the next.I think we’ve grown a lot together,” Brasch says. “We all have a lot of different influences. We’re not just going to write fast, super loud songs all the time, we want to have a dynamic record. We’ve all built off one another and built off our influences in other bands, movies, books. I think it’s just a matter of growing up and really finding your sound after a while. We all play off of one another, and that’s what makes our band our band.”