ALBUM REVIEW: A Day To Remember – ‘Big Ole Album Vol. 1’

You’re Welcome brought about a lot of changes for A Day To Remember. It was their first album on Fueled By Ramen, as well as the maiden voyage of a brand new sound. Well, ‘brand new’ for them, anyway. Opposed to the fusion of pop-punk and metalcore that had been honed for years, up to a point of synergetic perfection on the run of Homesick, What Separates Me From You and Common Courtesy, You’re Welcome trialed a route of contemporary metalcore and borderline radio-rock that was a clear step down, and that the fanbase at large couldn’t stand. That’s the biggest change made by that album—the perception of A Day To Remember. Once the shining lights of the Warped scene they’d come up in and surpassed, they’d seemingly stepped into traps of their own volition with little care for the fallout. For a band who have, among their biggest hits, a song called Have Faith In Me, it was pretty hard to for the first time ever.

So then comes the announcement of Big Ole Album Vol. 1, perhaps trying to siphon some of the good will from Common Courtesy—A Day To Remember’s best album, for the record—as another surprise midweek release. The difference was the method of distribution, being a ‘physical-first’ release before arriving on streaming about a month later. Now, there’s a couple of ways to perceive this—with starry-eyed optimism, perhaps this is A Day To Remember preserving the sanctity of the event of a new album, with support for brick-and-mortar establishments (and Amazon) along the way. The cynic / realist, however, might view it through the lens of how their last album underwhelmed, they’ve felt the pinch over the last couple of years, and are now looking to recoup some losses in an easy yet headline-grabbing way.

That’s where this new notion of perception really stems from. People just don’t trust A Day To Remember to make consistently good music anymore, and with how off the whole cycle of You’re Welcome felt, it’s hard to blame them. Maybe it’s the Fueled By Ramen signing that’s backed them into a corner, now on a label that’s notorious for mismanaging anyone on its roster who isn’t a flagship act. It’s not like the short end of label politics is a new yoke for A Day To Remember (who were signed to Victory for God knows how long, remember), but there’s something about this instance in particular that carries that acrid feel. You can certainly conject something of a narrative, how they were promised fortune and adulation on their new home, and given that that hasn’t happened, they’ve got one hell of an axe to grind.

But rather than turning it on the higher-ups and bean-counters who’ve ran them into the ground, it’s the listeners left to face the brunt of the ire, and almost every one of Big Ole Album…’s failures can be traced back to that. What’s worth noting is how the negativity around You’re Welcome was significantly amplified. The album itself was not the irredeemable disaster that plenty would attribute to it; it was a regression, sure, but it could’ve been left at that. Rather, the sense of betrayal and the hurt from the perceived slight made the backlash so much louder. And while it’s entirely A Day To Remember’s prerogative to make the music they want to make (though we will come back to that), they also don’t have to kick the audience while they’re down to this degree. Big Ole Album… courses and ripples with spite, not only informing almost every decision made on it, but walling off any chance of doing more or being better.

You can plainly tell that A Day To Remember despise that people didn’t like You’re Welcome, spelled out on Feedback and LeBron and the waves of bile that each spit out at haters and critics. Honestly, it’s beneath a band as long-running as this. Moreover, it’s an even worse look to be this heavily on the defensive from the very beginning, as the trifecta of Make It Make Sense, Feedback and Bad Blood sets the tone for antagonism that, really, percolates across the whole album. They’re the most direct in relaying it, though, and as such, feel completely interchangeable with the myriad of acts for whom this kind of ‘ruthless’ clapping-back is the norm. Suffice to say, A Day To Remember are not one of those acts. You can really tell if To The Death is any indication, where prior to its big, climactic breakdown, Jeremy McKinnon lets out a mischievous chuckle and delivers the concentrated wallop of cringe, “I’ll leave you with something genuine, from the bottom of my heart—fuck you!” This is an almost-40-year-old man coming out with this, by the way. It’d be mortifying to experience from someone half his age.

But the hate runs a lot deeper than just the lyrics. Even instrumentally, Big Ole Album… has its piece to say by actively doubling down on the sounds and styles that raised hackles last time, as if to poke at its detractors for a reaction. That’s all without realising that no one’s getting offended by music like this, but instead the wasted potential it all represents. For what’s being done, it’s actually executed rather well, especially McKinnon’s growls that pick up some infernal, bone-deep tone against this particular metalcore palette. If this were anyone else—say, the usual crowd of radio-metalcore mid-tier-dwellers—there’d be no issue.

When it’s coming from A Day To Remember though, who famously inspired innumerable amounts of these bands and are now stooping so clearly to their much-lower level, you’d better believe there’s an issue! For one, it’s just a creatively stagnant way to operate within metalcore, almost as if the standard-setters no longer believe in their own abilities and have to play it so safe. This isn’t just a step back for A Day To Remember; now, it’s direct imposition into the territories of other bands by so stridently copying their cues. Why are we just doing a Wage War song on To The Death? Or Bring Me The Horizon on Die For Me? Or even Bad Omens on Silence? In every one of these examples, the clash with A Day To Remember’s usual style goes without saying, and it ultimately mitigates what was special about it to begin with. Especially on To The Death—or its earlier counterparts Make It Make Sense and Bad Blood—the brand of heaviness at play is so blunt and cold, and shorn of even any possible avenues for dynamism. Songs like this are the main targets for the accusations of selling out that have been levied, and you definitely see the merit behind them. Right down to the behind-the-scenes personnel who seem to engineer every one of these cookie-cutter metalcore products, there’s little difference to speak of.

But let’s table any discussions of industry moves and conspiratorialising for the time being, and presume that this is, indeed, the music that A Day To Remember want to make. This could simply be where their heart is now, and receiving such a cold reaction might have just stung that much. But if all of that were true, does this sound like a band who are fulfilled? The most damning piece of evidence is All My Friends, one of Big Ole Album…’s pop-punk songs that, admittedly, does tickle the same portion of the brain as Florida Georgia Line’s meatheaded but entertaining bro-downs do; it is quite fun. But even so, McKinnon just doesn’t seem able to match up. This is tapping into the same practice of running with the boys that made Right Back At It Again so exhilarating, but from the less-excitable delivery to how it’s relayed—the chorus line “here we go again” hardly seems to tessellate with this supposed wild night out—there’s this air of routine to it. It’s the same thematic frame that Viva La Mexico had on You’re Welcome, the implication being of a mandated good time that can be potentially be pushed as a single at a later date.

Fortunately, the mask does slip at points and glimpses of the old A Day To Remember begin to poke out. Flowers is the main one, a fairly unassuming pop-punk cut midway in the tracklist, but has the spirit and genuineness that this band always trafficked in, where McKinnon’s dedication to his parents feels actually realistic. On a better A Day To Remember album, it wouldn’t leap out nearly as much, but it’s a highlight here for factors out of its control. There are others too, albeit in a more scattered, granular capacity. For its problems, All My Friends is still buoyant and enjoyable enough; Miracle lands the best of the heavier stuff; and isolated from the chaff that is the rest of it, Die For Me probably has the best chorus on the album (likely because it was a co-write with Oli Sykes, and so sounds identical to a Bring Me The Horizon song).

Ultimately, though, Big Ole Album… winds up mostly the same in estimation as You’re Welcome did—it’s not the unsalvageable wreck that many will inevitably claim it, but it’s also absolutely not the direction that A Day To Remember should be going in. It’s clunky and unappealing, and the experience undergoes no appreciation or improvement between the first listen and the tenth. Add on the staunch protectiveness they exhibit at the very outset, and they’re doing themselves no additional favours. Most of all, it’s the sort of alienating backslide that there’s clearly no demand for. Again, good for A Day To Remember for following their arrow if this is the music they truly want to make, but they don’t convince when selling that, and flogging it to an already disgruntled listener-base makes no one seem happy.

For fans of: Wage War, I Prevail, Bad Omens

‘Big Ole Album Vol. 1’ by A Day To Remember is out now physically on Fueled By Ramen. It is released digitally and on streaming platforms on 21st March.

Words by Luke Nuttall