This Is Our Year - Life as We Know It
This is Our Year is a Chicago based five piece who combine elements of pop, punk and post-hardcore to create their own style of tunes, which can be found on their debut album Life as We Know It.
True Friends Are The Latest Trend is the opening song for the album and is the perfect track to demonstrate what the band is capable to achieving. Although this one opens with a gruff vocal and some pulsating guitars which repeat on the verses, the chorus on the other hand is much more upbeat and poppier with vocals more melodious. Within this one track you can hear how the band combine the hardcore and pop punk elements to create their own sound and it works, well, particularly with Justin Olin's two toned vocal!
A similar flow occurs on various other tracks such A Test Of Faith where there is a hardcore basis for the verses with vocals and guitars, while the pop punk elements make their way through on the lighter choruses. As the last minute of Landmarks approaches, there is quite a tough guitar solo and adjoining vocal.
Dedication & Heart is another masterpiece, this one taking a pop punk foundation with upbeat guitars and tuneful vocal and then adding some gruffer tones. There is a much more untied feel to this one, which follows through into the album title track. One stand out track must be the first single from the band Identities, about the process of growing up and finding out who you are. Other stand out features includes the harmonies of Danger To The World.
Although a little more variation in sound would have made more of a lasting impression considering the volume of bands trying to make an impact in the music scene with a similar sound at the current time, This is Our Year has a first rate release on their hands and will of course find a home in teenage hearts and music systems across the globe.