ALBUM REVIEW: 5 Seconds Of Summer – ‘Everyone’s A Star!’

If the past few years of 5 Seconds Of Summer-related output has proven anything, it’s that the band can be far less than the sum of its parts. Between 2020 and now, all four members have released solo projects spanning pop, classic rock, glam-rock, indie and emo, and for the most part, have vastly eclipsed anything to come from the band. It’s certainly true in quality, but also in any factor of intrigue. From 2020’s CALM at the very latest, the least-interesting work to come from 5 Seconds Of Summer has been from them as a collective.

It’s a shame when that’s likely the complete opposite of what was intended. You can tell how much maturity has been a fast-tracked commodity within 5SOS albums as they’ve explored more adult pop and new wave, and largely left pop-rock behind. And yet, it hasn’t stuck the landing, mostly because their chief appeal early on was the same teenage rushes as the 2000s pop-rock and pop-punk they idolised. Plus, there was never a long-term prospect for 5 Seconds Of Summer in that style. As heavily as proclamations of ‘pop-punk’s future’ were levied from overzealous rock mags looking to boost circulation, the fact that their rise was so intrinsically tied to opening for One Direction would’ve been an automatic death knell for some audiences in the mid-2010s. This wasn’t true pop-punk, but more akin to the early Jonas Brothers—nominally belonging to the sound, though through ill-gotten, ‘mainstream’ ways.

Today, however, no one would care. At a point when Busted and McFly have both been ingratiated into pop-punk’s club of influential names (and who are both far more corporate in their origins than 5SOS ever were), those early days of the self-titled album or Sounds Good Feels Good would be welcomed with loving embrace. And even if they aren’t acting on that, you get the impression that the band are still aware of it. A more mercenary act would’ve used Everyone’s A Star! as their hefty, unsubtle wedge back in the door, for a backwards pivot that’s profitable enough to mask the shame of not really wanting to do this. 5 Seconds Of Summer, between drastic sonic changes and a plethora of solo left-turns, are not that act, regardless of how ‘good’ it would be for them. If nothing else, Everyone’s A Star! arrives with a floor of respectability.

A song like Boyband, if anything, would suggest there’s no love lost between 5SOS and the mainstream machine. It’s one of their more snide and antagonistic cuts (mentioning outright how they “[irritate] the metalheads” is a particularly sharp skewer), sold further by how deadened and dispassionate the delivery is. No. 1 Obsession follows as effectively a rewrite of She Looks So Perfect if it were hungrier, more forceful and less concerned with jamming in American Apparel product placement. A lot of these harder emotions inform Everyone’s A Star!’s direction, and it’s good to see 5 Seconds Of Summer hit them without becoming too tritely rockstarised. There’s something immensely gratifying about Evolve’s rattled-off hedonistic touchstones having more in common with The Dare than ‘80s Hard Rocker #7.

Of course, it just wouldn’t be the done thing to wall off the sensitive side of these fellows completely. Thus, the likes of I’m Scared I’ll Never Sleep Again and istillfeelthesame are here, mostly feeling like concessions. The washed-out style harkens back to the 5SOS eras that were the least impactful, the latter trying to circumvent that through a sharper electro-pop beat and only partially getting there. It’s something of a lodestone for 5 Seconds Of Summer, especially on Everyone’s A Star!. At least on Ghost, the goopy synth-psych modeled off Tame Impala is trying for something, and reaching towards the album’s expanded palette. Compare that to blank swathes of pop that don’t have much of a direction—or, in the case of nothingburger closer Jawbreaker, a sense of kineticism to begin with—and the holes become very easy to poke.

You can also tell from this where the tightest focus on Everyone’s A Star! is supposed to be placed. The first leg of the album is really strong in putting so much focus on this harder, thornier skin, and especially through what Ashton Irwin’s always-above-paygrade drumming can bring. It’s an extension of where Youngblood tilted as a single, now more comfortable with eschewing straighter pop tendencies to apparently draw from acts like Gorillaz, N.E.R.D and The Prodigy. The sliver of confluence between those three is most present on NOT OK—big, sweaty drumbeats and beefy gang shouts, quasi-industrial in its presentation and proud of throwing its weight around. (There’s also a filter on Calum Hood’s voice sometimes that makes him sound like Damon Albarn on Feel Good Inc., if you’re wondering how Gorillaz factor in.)

Elsewhere, the title track kicks things off with even looser boundaries, resembling more of the baggy, Britpop-adjacent electronica of the late ‘90s. Telephone Busy and Evolve, then, feel intimately clued into the current permutations of dance-rock, where you’ll find shades of Måneskin, The Dare and, in the tense bass throb of the former, even bits of Foals at their most forward. There’s even a couple of pop-rock run-ins on Sick Of Myself and The Rocks, albeit more in the indie vein and erring towards the less robust end of 5SOS’ current ouevre. Still, they’re both catchy enough, in particular Sick Of Myself as a riff on The Strokes that gets its composite parts right.

Honestly, of all the post-pop-punk 5SOS albums, Everyone’s A Star! has the most about itself to like. Its arrow is curved but there is a throughline and progress made towards following it, and it’s got by far the most interesting, dynamic and propulsive compositions that this band has laid down in a while. Also, it’s a really nice touch that this is its own thing, separated in style from any of its creators’ solo works. There’s a little faith restored in that, in this being more than just a vehicle for individual projects to splinter off of, and only reconvening when mandate decrees it. The likable streak to 5 Seconds Of Summer has been putting in back-breaking work to hold them together as a unit lately, so to see that begin to take shape on Everyone’s A Star! feels like a much-needed win.

For fans of: Måneskin, The 1975, The Dare

‘Everyone’s A Star!’ by 5 Seconds Of Summer is out now on Republic Records.

Words by Luke Nuttall