Watching Glory Die289767363x

If there was ever any question about pop punk’s continued popularity, New Found Glory is proof that the youthful genre never went away. After 23 years together, the Florida band has maintained relevancy by staying loyal to their peppy Warped Tour sound and their fans, and Forever and Ever x Infinity, their tenth studio album, shows them at their most refined. Singer Jordan Pundik’s joyful, nasal vocal tone has only become more distinguished, and the band has mastered what made them so distinctive in the first place: palm-muted power chords and gang vocals (“Nothing to Say”), nerdy pop culture references (“Scarier Than Jason Voorhees at a Campfire”), and playful self-deprecation (“Double Chin for the Win”) alongside assurances that everything is going to be okay (“Shook by Your Shaved Head”). These are songs meant to elicit the same rush as a school-age crush, just like New Found Glory songs always have.

With Black Label Society, guitarist and one-time Ozzy sideman Zakk Wylde found a lasting home for his ferocious metal picking. Formed in the late '90s, the outfit features a rotating lineup and Wylde taking on the bulk of the instruments. At its heart a Southern metal band, BLS melds the whiskey-soaked spirit of '70s rockers like Lynyrd Skynyrd with the unleashed chaos of '80s thrashers such as Slayer…

On their acoustic album, Make The Most Of It, New Found Glory tackles the last year head-on with their most cathartic collection of songs to date. Written in the wake of guitarist, Chad Gilbert's cancer diagnosis and mixed by Mark Trombino (blink-182, Jimmy Eat World), MTMOT is a rumination on what it means to grieve, to live, to approach every day with appreciation and a sense of fulfillment. Coral Springs, Florida band New Found Glory broke into the mainstream as part of the early-2000s wave of pop-punk acts, rising to the upper tier of the genre alongside Good Charlotte and Saves the Day. Their breakthrough third album, Sticks and Stones, peaked at number four on the U.S. charts in 2002, only to be bested two years later by their Top Three effort Catalyst.

The popularity of California rock bands with both female and male vocals was simply immense in the wake of the Mamas & the Papas and Jefferson Airplane. Morning Glory pay significant tribute to both bands on their obscure and only LP, though you can certainly hear some Byrds in some of the guitar licks, as well as traces of Bay Area psychedelic groups like Moby Grape in some of the arrangements. It's well-sung (with the sole woman in the group, Gini Graybeal, handling most of the lead vocals) and tightly played, with Abe "Voco" Kesh, most famous for his work with Blue Cheer, handling the production. The problems are a little predictable for bands heavily influenced by California heavyweight groups of the era, but they're present nonetheless: a lack of top-flight songwriting in particular, and an absence of overwhelming personality in general…