When it comes to Good Charlotte we would, it seems, have their card well and truly marked. Always one step behind the game, they emerged in the slipstream of the US punk explosion with a set of unchallenging teen themed anthems that led to global success while Green Day and Blink 182 were off getting serious. So now they’re back with a third album that sees them, ironically enough, getting serious themselves.
Coming so closely in the wake of Green Day’s masterful American Idiot, (pierced) eyebrows are likely to be raised, especially when it opens with a portentous choral piece. You can almost hear the cynics sharpening their knives at the prospect of a bunch of cartoon punks woefully overstretching themselves. The reality, however, is shockingly different.
TCOLAD might just be one of the surprise packages of the year. Quite simply, nothing that they have produced before has even hinted at what they’ve come up with this time. The basic premise of catchy punk pop remains, yet it’s effectively the only thing that hasn’t changed. The tone of the record is far more mature, the lyrics focused inward as opposed to sneering at the rest of the world. They also suggest that being in Good Charlotte isn’t quite as much fun as it maybe appeared.
The music too matches this new found state of mind, throwing extra dimensions such as strings, acoustic instruments and beats into the mix. They cover a range of styles too – from the piano ballad ‘The Truth’ to the disco punk (replete with falsetto vocals) of ‘I Just Wanna Live’. It shouldn’t work, but it does and just goes to show that you can never judge a book by its cover.