New Found Glory [Hits]Just a few words about the booklet / back insert, the booklet comes from New Found Glory's first album, but the back insert comes from their greatest hits album, i bought their eponymous album after seeing it newly advertised somewhere, i really liked the look of the cover, very ingenious, the music was excellent too, but after a dozen plays i felt that there was too much filler, with only two truly excellent tracks on the disc, then i came across their Hits album, going for a song on Ebay [i got it for £1.29 or something], and so that disc having a poor booklet cover, i amalgamated the two packages, now i've got the best of both worlds, i do this quite often.
New Found Glory are an American punk band, originally from Florida, they've been together for 13 years now, it's hard to classify their music, they've been tagged with the 'Emo' name ['Emotional Hardcore' is the formal name], but i just refer to them as the more generic Punk [very much like Green Day or Offspring], if New Found Glory have a weakness, it's that they have a certain formula, and they seem to stick to it, all their songs sound similar, and it's only when you get deeper into them, you start to see beyond the sameness that they churn out, they're loud, but melodic, and they have these chorus's, probably they're most famous signature, they're a five piece, but their lead singer doesn't play an instrument.
Like i said above, the booklet is wonderful, showing nine squares of 'growing up' i guess, though in retrospect to roller skates and Britney Spears, they might wish they had picked something different now!, but the front cover is full of colour and variety, it speaks for itself, and yes it does show a degree of innocence, the back insert has different sized titles for each track, but i think it works well, the numbers in black are transfers i rubbed on myself, as the track numbers on the original are not very clear, but these two amalgamated discs make a great package.
The tracks i enjoyed the most were 2-3, 5-6 & 10-12, but because i had their first album, and i played it quite a lot, therefore track 3 'Dressed To Kill' is easily more likable than the rest, there's a real nice riff on the lead guitar as an intro [0:01-0:13], and it's this riff which comes back again and again to power the second half of the chorus, the delivery is incredibly infectious and enthusiastic, New Found Glory certainly have a formula that works so well, the lyrics are fairly banal and repetitious, but bordering on a punky sort of music, sometimes 'the banal the better', it's good to have a 'best of / hits' of this group, as i don't believe their studio albums stand up on their own.
Here's New Found Glory singing 'Dressed To Kill' on YouTube.
