Words by Sam Townsend // @meltingwaxphotography
There are few bands I trust more to turn a rough season into a sing?along than New Found Glory. ‘Listen Up!’ arrives as their first front-to-back set of new electric songs in years, and it lands with the kind of earnest uplift and hearts still wide open only a lifer pop?punk band can deliver. The record is out now via Pure Noise Records; a tight, ten?song burst which favours momentum over bloat.
Context matters here. Guitarist Chad Gilbert’s ongoing cancer battle has necessarily reframed the band’s perspective, and you can feel that resilience in the muscle and message of these tracks; it’s not saccharine optimism so much as hard?won gratitude. In a recent cover story, Gilbert and Jordan Pundik spoke plainly about channelling hardship into joy, and it’s this spirit that is the album’s true North.
On the musical side, the quartet doubled down on a riff?first writing approach at Gilbert’s place in Nashville, teaming with producer Steve Evetts and bringing in Dan O’Connor (Four Year Strong) for contributions. Undoubtedly, it’s these choices which have given the record its punchy, back?to?front cohesion. Fans who cut their teeth on ‘Sticks and Stones’ and ‘Catalyst’ will hear the lineage in the guitar shapes and tempo choices, but this isn’t cosplay nostalgia; it’s NFG sharpening familiar tools for a new chapter.
The sequencing wastes no time. Boom Roasted opens the door with classic NFG bounce of down?picking guitars, sprinting drums, and Jordan’s bright?edged tenor clearing the clouds. It feels like a thesis for what follows: keep moving, keep smiling, keep swinging. 100%, one of the pre?release singles, is the record’s mission statement and is hook-forward and unashamedly affirmative.
From there, Laugh It Off threads that classic NFG needle: peppy melody serving lyrics about friction and forgiveness, the sonic equivalent of taking a breath and resetting a conversation you care about. As a long?time fan, I felt the familiar shoulder?drop of relief.
A Love Song is exactly what it says on the tin, though the way the track is framed matters. The band leans a touch heavier here with more bite in the guitars and a little extra grit on the cymbal crashes, so the sweetness reads as grounded rather than gauzy. It’s one of those moments New Found Glory have always handled well in letting romance sound like real life, not just postcard gloss.
The album’s core nostalgia trip is Beer and Blood Stains, a back?to?the?roots snapshot that nods toward the South Florida rooms that shaped their work ethic and worldview. You can practically smell the dive?bar drywall and feel the elbows in your ribs. It’s a love letter to the scene as a verb, not a place you once were, but instead as something you keep doing. Pushing this track ahead of the album makes sense as it serves to convey both the history and the heartbeat of ‘Listen Up!‘.
Medicine and Treat Yourself form a tidy middle?album dialogue, with one being more reflective and the other instantly crowd?ready. The former eases the tempo without losing urgency, whilst the latter locks into that crisp up?the?neck riffing Evetts captures so well, leaving plenty of air for gang?vocal moments built for sweaty nights and smiling faces. If you’ve ever shouted along to this band in a club, you know exactly what I mean.
The closing run of Dream Born Again, You Got This, and Frankenstein’s Monster clarifies the album’s arc from reaffirmation to resolution. The penultimate track is the pep talk we all pretend not to need, and ending on momentum rather than melancholy is a deliberate choice.
Taken as a whole, the set is compact (ten songs, all-kill-no-filler!) though this brevity turns out to be one of the strengths of ‘Listen Up!’. There’s a clarity of intent and a refusal to overthink, which keeps the energy high and the sentiment honest. If you came for a left?field reinvention, you didn’t read the room. But if you came for a New Found Glory record that understands why this band has mattered to you, to me, to the rooms we grew up in, you’ll find it here in spades.
Because I’m sentimental about this band, I’ll happily admit a few choruses triggered that time?travel feeling only NFG gives me. But the thing I value most about ‘Listen Up!‘ isn’t the throwback glow, it’s the posture. These songs stand tall without pretending life is easy – what could be more (pop) punk rock than creating a direct, durable album about choosing hope?
Listen Up! doesn’t try to be everything; it simply tries to be honest, loud, and useful. And for a band that helped a lot of us grow up, that’s more than enough. File it next to the records you already love, and expect it to earn its place.
Thanks to Dallas Does PR
Discover more from Good Call Live
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
New Found Glory putting out their first full electric set in years is genuinely exciting news for anyone who grew up with pop punk. The description of it as a tight ten-song burst that favors momentum over bloat is exactly what you want to hear from a band at this stage of their career. Too many bands in this genre either overstay their welcome or lose their edge by trying to chase somethng new, so it sounds like NFG stayed true to form here. Going to give this a full listen this weekend.