Photo by: Last.fm
My Dinosaur Life by Motion City Soundtrack promised to show a darker side of the pop-punk quintet and it didn’t disappoint. Their earlier album, Even If It Kills Me (2008) was perceived by many fans to be rather superficial, so the change of direction back towards their sophomore album, Commit This to Memory (2007) is a welcome shift. For their debut with major label Columbia Records, MCS returned to their second album’s producer, Blink-182’s Mark Hoppus.
Through their return to Hoppus, they were able to focus more on the punk side of their style while staying true to the sound that gained them their immense fan base. Their lyrics are still catchy and driven by the same emotion that have always been there: angst, discomfort, self-consciousness, but interlaced with a lot of fun.
Right from the start, the sounds are familiar as well. “Worker Bee” is an excellent track to open with, giving listeners a bit of what they’re used to, while looking back at wounds they have overcome to get to where they are now. Lead singer Justin Pierre sings softly over spaced guitar chords of “a new beginning” and a “gold star,” then dives right into a MCS staple: Jesse Johnson playing central, catchy lines on the synthesizer.
This album is packed with upbeat tracks with melodic and harsh-toned choruses. Some songs tackle darker subjects than is usual for the band such as the issue of overmedication and drug use in “Delirium” and “Hysteria” and the first single, “Disappear.” This song is so aggressively punk it’s striking. However, the band shows the pull of a grown up type of immaturity in “Her Words Destroyed My Planet,” a half fun, half sad non-love long about trying to change after a big break up.
The track builds momentum to the line “It’s all my ***king fault!” The very catchy, profane song “@!#?@!” is invigorating to sing along to, but superficial beyond that.
Overall, this is Motion City Soundtrack’s first album on a major label, and My Dinosaur Life is excellent. There is enough growth from their previous records to be satisfying while not changing so drastically as to upset or isolate long time fans.
