Yellowcard
Southern Air

Four stars for the eighth album by Yellowcard. Hard to accept, especially when talking about a band that seemed doomed after the success of Ocean Avenue, a victory now 10 years old, in the golden days of pop/punk all about beaches and sun. The band led by Ryan Key over time no longer convinced fans, critics, or even myself. 

Yet in August, their sound returns to smell of California - even though they are from the other coast (geographically). I found myself casually reading opinions from various online music portals praising the current "Southern Air" as the best album by the band. The punk rock with the aid of violin (sometimes not entirely necessary) by Yellowcard becomes convincing again with the opening track "Awakening," a title that is as symptomatic as the album cover, reminiscent of Ocean Avenue. "Awakening" is an impactful track, a punk rock piece that fully synthesizes the band's style, intriguing and strangely does not feel like déjà vu, the same goes for "The Surface Of The Sun," probably the best song on the album, not yet released as a single, but with the natural ease to become one. The first single, typically summer, the first excerpt from the album, is "Always Summer" complete with a cute video portraying them, no longer kids, with the same endearing faces as before. After a pop interlude with the not indispensable collaboration on the lyrics by Patrick Stump of Fall Out Boy, "A Vicious Kind" is another noteworthy track certainly more than the preceding one. In its brief duration of less than 40 minutes spread over 10 tracks, the album already seems to have reached its end, but a couple of decent tracks like "Rivertown Blues" and the closing title track keep the listening experience enjoyable.

Certainly we are not talking about a gem of modern punk rock, something that is beyond the band's reach - at least not any longer - but "Southern Air" greatly garners positive reviews from both critics and myself, bringing with it a couple of tracks that will surely become classics in the group's live setlists. A delightful comeback from the States to which I just as delightfully award a fourth star.