The Story So Far
Under Soil And Dirt

This genre has been quite satisfying lately. It seems that after the excellent albums released under the label "pop panc"-emo/pop-whatever-we-don't-really-get (yes, they didn't really fit these genres), the good part of this genre went into hibernation, leaving us at the mercy of the worst bands, the ones whose banality and pretentiousness were directly proportional to the pathetic nature of their appearance. Or the same bands, after their first albums, started giving us embarrassing works. No names mentioned, so everyone is happier (or not?)

Anyway, this type of pop rock, because that's what it is, there's no point in calling it pop punk/emo-pop because it's not, has been generating excellent bands over the last few years, especially American ones, with new ideas, and even when there aren't new ideas... well, they sound much better and less plastic than their predecessors.

Among these, we find the likes of The Story So Far. They debuted in 2011. And they do it well, they know what they’re doing and have energy to spare.

The energy. Yes. There are no ballads in the true sense of the word here; okay, everything sounds highly melodic, sugary and youthful and blah blah blah, but fast and upbeat. It's super easy to listen to, not taxing at all, but that's fine, the strength of this album, and the scene it belongs to, is precisely its lightness. It will leave few traces of its presence, but that's not what it's asked to do.