Album Review: Bad Vibrations by A Day to Remember

Unleashing your demons never sounded so good. Wherever you look, storm clouds are gathering. As the world convulses with hatred, fear and prejudice, it’s more crucial than ever to establish a sense of community, and an outlet for our shared frustrations.For A Day To Remember – just like so many of us – heavy music has always fulfilled those roles, so perhaps it shouldn’t come as a surprise that ‘Bad Vibrations’ is their darkest and most emotionally turbulent record to date.Instead of trying to recreate the fist-pumping, arena-dominating glories of 2013’s ‘Common Courtesy’, the kings of Ocala are paying homage to their punk and metalcore roots, and baring their scars along the way.

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A Day To Remember will always be one of those bands whose fans attack each album passionately based on how they change their sound. Whether it's Homesick or For Those Who Have Heart, I'm one of those who managed to appreciate all their records. Even the ones I didn't like at first ended up growing on me. Songs like "All I Want" and "The Plot To Bomb The Panhandle" (and yes, even their Kelly Clarkson cover) are all guilty pleasures.

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A Day To Remember would probably prefer to go a few years without some sort of roadblock threatening their art (or, in the case of their ongoing litigation against Victory Records, their career), but they’ve shown time and again to be one of the most resilient acts in the heavy music universe. In the case of Bad Vibrations, their sixth studio album, there’s a different kind of tension present: The album marks the first time the Florida quintet have written and recorded in a totally collaborative environment since 2007’s For Those Who Have Heart—and, as the band attested in their cover story in AP 338, the writing and recording process was an intense one, full of self-doubt, insane amounts of pressure and the occasional sonic squabble. But the spirit of having all five members in a room clashing creatively—along with the steady hands of punk-rock super-producers Bill Stevenson and Jason Livermore (Descendents, Rise Against) and mixing legend Andy Wallace (Nirvana, Rage Against The Machine)—has resulted in some of A Day To Remember’s most forward-thinking, engaging and all-around exemplary songs to date.

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