Writing a decent pop-punk album is sort of a difficult task to handle. The genre is so road-hardened at this point that creating something that can live up to the greats is nearly impossible. You need to figure that pop-punk was huge, then died, then had a comeback, then died again, and now is living a third life in the 2020s. So much of this third wave of pop-punk sounds recycled, though. Many of the bands of today are doing little more than ripping off older bands' riffs, coming up with some meaningless lyrics, and calling it a single. With the state of the genre as it is, it’s a real treat whenever you find something worth listening to. Something that is original but still clearly a direct descendant of the classics. Something like “There Goes the Neighborhood” by California pop-punk duo Girlfriends.
Girlfriends dropped their debut single, “California,” in 2020; they would then go on to release their first album, “Girlfriends,” later that year. As the decade went on, we got another album, “(e)motion sickness,” and an EP, “Over My Dead Body.” The band has been on a steady rise to stardom since appearing on the scene, even having toured as an opener for Avril Lavigne in 2023. “There Goes the Neighborhood” is another massive step forward for Girlfriends, delivering and expanding upon everything that made their previous two albums great.
The album is a fairly straightforward pop-punk record. You’ve got your wailing guitars, you’ve got your screaming vocals, and you’ve got your rocking drums; what more could you want? It falls more so on the punk side of pop-punk, fitting in with other genre legends like Blink-182 and Yellowcard. You won’t find much of the theatrical, pop-heavy side of the genre here, just ripping solos and red-hot riffs.
“There Goes the Neighborhood” plays heavily on nostalgia for days gone by. Lyrics talk about the years when we didn’t have so many burdens to carry and the lost nights of screwing around with friends that will never come back. It’s a fitting message considering the album sounds like something I would have been listening to at that point in my life. I can see myself, seventeen years old again, chilling with my homies on the roof of our local diner, passing a bone around and watching cars creep up and down the main drag of our one-stoplight town, “There Goes the Neighborhood” playing loudly on a speaker, giving our position away to the local pigs.
This may just be Girlfriends’ best album yet. There is not a single skip on this record. “Better Than Ever” and “Linoleum” are obvious singles that will make their way around the new discovery playlists. Given a solid marketing strategy and a little luck, Girlfriends may just have a hit on their hands. There is no shortage of pop-punk fans out there right now. A record like this one could make waves among the massive fan base if given the opportunity.
“There Goes the Neighborhood” is a fantastic album. It doesn’t need to rely on sounding too much like other iconic songs to get by; it can stand all on its own. Take some time today to give this one a listen. It’s a pop-punk jewel that I believe will blast Girlfriends into a level of notoriety in the scene that hasn’t been reached since the late 90s. If you like what you hear, you can catch Girlfriends on tour through the end of the year. If they won’t be rolling through your town, then don’t worry; you still have two other albums and an EP to listen to.
