PAWS return with “Youth Culture Forever”

by Eric Smale

Glasgow-based pop punk band PAWS return with their sophomore album, Youth Culture Forever, an album that pummels the listener with its lo-fi, high-octane sound and anthemic hooks. The songs range from melodic power-punk to the more garage-friendly side of ’90s guitar rock.

On some songs, like album opener “Erreur Humaine,” the band mines a more downcast, heavy indie rock sound to explore contemplative themes like aging and stasis. Sung over a shimmering major-chord progression, lines like “Just 22 and I feel like I’m through” are jarring and, may be, that’s the point. The song itself is a mid-tempo, Pixies-esque burner with an explosive refrain (“One should never go back and fuck with the past”), framing such sentiments with a sense of real drama.

Lyrically, this album feels less like a celebration of youth than an elegy for its ending, despite the album’s title. The album seems to occupy that weird in-between space after you realize that the past is gone, but before you decide it’s not worth trying to get back. It might seem a strange fixation for a band so young and fired up, and the angst can sometimes feel a little overdone. It can also be endearing – after all, Youth Culture Forever isn’t really about the lyrics so much as it’s about the raw, unfiltered sentiment behind the words, the sheer energy of the music.

And, thankfully, it’s not all prosaic: after the opener, the record takes on a more urgent feel, with two tracks in a row of catchy, propulsive punk rock. But even with all the overdriven momentum and youthful abandon of these songs, that same ambivalence pops up again: “Sometimes we are forced to accept defeat.” Other songs tackle suicide (“Alone”), and the struggle to leave a sour relationship in the dust where it belongs (“Someone New”). Halfway through the former, the band sinks into a slow, metallic groove with crunchy guitars and funereal strings, providing a moody detour from the album’s main drag.

The undisputed highlight of the album is its last track, “War Cry”, an expansive, ultra-heavy piece (think proto-grunge legends, Melvins, or even the desert dirges of Kyuss) that descends into throat-shredding madness before settling down into a dreamy, extended jam reminiscent of The Cure or DIIV. The song shows a whole other side of what PAWS can do as a band, ending the album on a blistering high.

So, maybe, Youth Culture Forever is a stepping stone towards a new era for PAWS, one free of the past. Either way, Youth Culture Forever might not reinvent the wheel, but it’s a tight set of exhilarating songs that shows a band poised on the edge of something big.

Release date: May 6, 2014