Album Review: The Young Hasselhoffs - "Life Got In The Way"

 

We first ran into Omaha's Young Hasselhoffs via the lead-off single and title track from this album a couple of months ago and a damn fine song it was too, a rollicking slice of pop-punk that you suspect Green Day wish they could still write. Apparently the group were local legends in Omaha when they first burst on the scene quarter of a century ago but never really got any further with 2022 seeing them returning to the fray with this self-explanatorily titled comeback.

Essentially the Young Hasselhoffs are a pop-punk band who definitely veer towards the poppier end of this particular genre. Hence this album is all chiming guitars, sunny vocals and upbeat melodies in the best Romantics/Knack tradition. The only trouble is that while it's all perfectly serviceable, by putting the title track (as we've already ascertained an absolute KO blow) right at the start, it kind of casts a bit of a pall on the rest of the tracks here which are cut from a similar cloth but don't quite have that full on irresistibility to them. There's a few that run it close such as the soaring Quiet and the anthemic Eugene McCray - Ex-Guitar Hero while When I'm Gone even owes a tip of the hat to the Kinks which is unexpected but welcome, likewise the gentle acoustic eulogy Surround You which closes things here. Overall though, a lot of the songs on here fall agonisingly just short, good enough but just missing that crucial extra sprinkle of stardust to turn them into world-beaters.

Life Got In The Way is a perfectly serviceable power-pop album but it just doesn't quite transcend to being genuinely great the way that, say, the Speedways' Talk Of The Town which we reviewed last week does. But still, a decent enough effort.

Bandcamp Link

NITE SONGS RATING: 🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌑🌑🌑 (7/10)

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