Rating:
Okay, so I’ll be real with you. When I heard that Good Charlotte was coming out with a new album, I had a flashback to about five years ago when I was in middle school. I was a big on MCR, Good Charlotte, Green Day, Linkin Park, Story of the Year, etc. And I’ll admit, they were the stomping grounds of my music tastes. I was your average thirteen-year old girl; in love with the Emo-boy bands, inspired to pick up the guitar and rock out to the three chord anthems I was used to listening to. It seemed like once 2007 rolled around, these guys pretty much kept it low key, with the exception of their album “Good Morning Revival” that released in mid-March of that year. Quite honestly, I was wondering if these guys even still existed for awhile. But talk of new music started in late 2008, when they were featured in an issue of Kerrang!, announcing that they’d be releasing an album sometime in 2009. Well boys and girls, here we are with the release on October 29th, 2010 with “Cardiology”, the bands fifth album.
Of course, I have to start off with praises of my favorite track, “Standing Ovation”. When it comes to choosing a favorite track, it needs at least of of the following: inspirational/meaningful lyrics, fresh guitar licks, good sounding bass lines, or an ass-kicking drum line. Lyrics took the show. This song is a great example of how simple tunes with meaningful lyrics can make a song a number one hit. “Counting the Days” came in close second; probably because of it’s familiarity to previous albums and how it kind of has that “anthem” feel to it. “Like It’s Her Birthday” was a good one, too. Partially because it was the single, and was a little bit on the funner side.
It seems like in every GC album, the overall sound changes, which I applaud them for. You can definitely hear in this one, the band went back to their roots in some songs. Before its release, front-man Joel Madden talked a bit about the album in an MTV interview, saying “there’s nothing dance-y on the record”, which contrasts from “Good Morning Revival”. “Intro to Cardiology”, a 47-second opening to the album, kind of hyped me up for something new from the boys. Letdown? Yeah, a little bit. This album overall was a bit too familiar to the older stuff. Granted, GC had some great songs in the past, such as “The River”, “I Just Wanna Live”, and “Hold On”. But the remaining tracks didn’t really stick out like they should have, which usually keeps the “wow” factor going until the end.
Though this album really only holds three out of four stars for me, I’ve got nothing bad to say about the boys. They’ve been hard at work for ten golden years now, keeping their old fans happy, and making new ones want to listen to older stuff, too. I guess for me, Good Charlotte’s past my time. And who knows? Maybe they’re saving the best for last. Until then, “Cardiology” is still worth a listen in my book, and can be purchased on iTunes for $9.99, or get it in stores!
