5 Seconds of Summer (Bonus Track Version)

Album Review

If one could draw a Venn diagram with Southern California punk-pop giants Green Day on the left and British boy band sensations One Direction on the right, the circles would most likely intersect to create Australia's 5 Seconds of Summer. A four-member ensemble of youthful, guitar-wielding, Christian College grads from Sydney, 5 Seconds of Summer make an utterly populist brand of power pop that has way more to do with the member's spikey-cute hairdos, skintight jeans, and twenty-something-year-old libidos than it does any kind of actual punk-inspired mischief. Which isn’t' to say there aren’t plenty of songs to enjoy on the band's eponymous 2014 full-length debut. If 5 Seconds of Summer learned anything from touring with One Direction (as they did in 2013), it was probably how to style their hair. However, if they learned two things, then the second was clearly how to write a catchy chorus; a talent the band and their producers display throughout most of the album. Primarily, 5 Seconds of Summer deliver track after track of gargantuan pop/rock, packed with immediately hummable melodies that anyone over 30 will probably feel slightly guilty for remembering. Cuts like the lead-off, "She Looks So Perfect," and the equally wide-eyed "Don’t Stop," are pure sugar, guitar-rock candy that will appeal to anyone who still has a sweet tooth for Sum 41. It also doesn’t hurt that the band seem to have, if not exactly a sense of humor, then a silly exuberance for their brand of teen rawk. In fact, cuts like the campy,'80s dance-rock of "English Love Affair," and the driving, "Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me," bring to mind the similarly rambunctious '90s punk-pop of blink-182. Ultimately, 5 Seconds of Summer have crafted an album of songs that stick in your head like neon bubblegum on a hot summer sidewalk. [A Deluxe Edition was released in Australia.]