This is a tough one. At some point, there was a crossover between cheesy melodic pop-punk and the worn-out "scene" image of white belts and devil locks. It became cool to sound like Simple Plan as long as you listened to August Burns Red, and constantly posted pictures of how tough your band looks. I've done my best to avoid this topic as much as possible, because complaining about it only brings attention to a demographic I'd like everyone to forget. But I have also been known to pick through these millennial pop-punk manifestations, as a handful of them are not part of this strange metalcore aesthetic, or are simply capable of writing catchy songs that aren't lame. So I'll bite my tongue for the time being.
Freshman 15 are a four-piece from Georgia, and all members appear to be under the legal drinking age, although they boast that they originally formed in 2001. As far as I can tell, this is their second release and first full-length, entitled Throw Up Your Hands for One Night Stands. The album opens with "Phoenix Can Keep You," starting with a poppy guitar melody that is joined by the appropriate hopping drum section and high-pitched vocals. I wanted to be wrong about this band, but there's so many clichés on the first track alone that there's no way this record could redeem itself. But hey, I have plenty of musical guilty pleasures, so who knows where this could go, right?
The album essentially progressed just as I expected. I can hear each song use the exact same power chords over and over, with the harmonizing layered vocals about summers and ex-girlfriends only coming in at the chorus. Everything is relatively catchy, I'll give Freshman 15 that, but it's just not that good. I can think of a number of bands that execute this style much better, or at least don't embarrass themselves quite as much. They even have the obligatory slow ballad, "The Truth About Liars," with an acoustic guitar and sparse piano.
I can see that this band would like to be slightly tongue-in-cheek, with their band name and album title referring to a stage of life they have yet to reach. But instead, it comes off as unconvincing and doesn't even succeed in being a novelty act. Freshman 15 is a marketing ploy at its finest, using internet popularity to inflate a marginally talented group of high school kids to be "the next big thing." Throw Up Your Hands for One Night Stands is pleasant enough that plenty of kids will eat it up, but it's too imitative to get past mid-level Warped tour status at most. As the first line of this album states, "Okay, we get it, nobody is as scene as you."
