Way back in 2010, Four Year Strong released a phenomenal album called Enemy of State. I wasn’t an FYS fan back in 2010 – I only “discovered” FYS around 2015 – but from what I hear the 2010 album solidified FYS as one of the standard bearers of the easycore genre.
Compared to their earlier work, FYS latest albums have been pretty polished. While I love FYS’ last few albums, I always found Enemy of the State and the albums that came before it just a little too rough around the edges for my personal taste. Great songs, no doubt, but just a little too off-key for me to really get into.
I have a feeling FYS purists won’t care for the re-recording of Enemy of the State, but I absolutely love it. FYS brought their current more-polished approach to this older album and the results are amazing.
The best example of this new take on an old song is Find My Way Back. Listen to the old version and the new version back to back and you’ll hear the difference.
Where Brain Pain was my undisputed favorite FYS album, suddenly Enemy of the State (re-recorded) has played a strong hand to unseat Brain Pain.