"Jeff Rosenstock - HELLMODE" The Return of the King

     Where do I even start to begin writing this review? I mean I'll tell you outright that this review is going to be incredibly biased, and I'll probably enjoy every single song here, because the truth is, in my ripe age of 20, Jeff Rosenstock is probably my favourite artist at the moment. Look, I'll wax and wane over who I listen to the most, and it usually depends just depends on my mood, but the one constant in my music taste throughout my post-high school life has been Jeff Rosenstock. I mean can you blame me? WORRY. is one of my favourite albums of all time, and for good reason, not only is it a pop-punk album, one of my favourite genres, but it just all fits so well, and makes me feel seen, and sometimes that's enough. Even if I don't hold the rest of his discography in such high regard, Jeff Rosenstock has always been such a consistent artist to me, I love every single project he's released, even SKA DREAM, and I even adore his side project Antarctigo Vespucci. Especially Love in the Time of E-mail, which I feel really doesn't have any skips until you reach over halfway through the album. What I'm basically saying is that I'm a Jeff Rosenstock superfan, and I'm incredibly excited to see what he has in store for the first album of his I was actually around to see released. So without further ado, my track-by-track review of HELLMODE by Jeff Rosenstock.

HELLMODE - Jeff Rosenstock

WILL U STILL U - 78/100 A cute little more lowkey track that has all the usual Jeff Rosenstock attributes: group vocals, that little acoustic guitar, lyrics that aren't the most eloquent but still hit hard, and of course some horns for good measure. Not sure when or why he did decide to go with all caps for the song titles but I'm kind of digging it. I reckon this song will serve as a good measure of how this album will go, aka it'll still have its hard moments but from the singles it does seem like a more lowkey and less shouty album from Jeff overall.

HEAD - 85/100 Articulation was never Jeff's strong suit though and at the very least I can say this shouty song is much easier to understand than his other shouty spoken word song Planet Luxury, I mean if you want to use the lyrics by all means go visit the lyrics page, but otherwise I think I enjoy it more than Planet Luxury. It goes back to those classic short but catchy Jeff Rosenstock tracks, and it warms my heart to know he still has it in him.

LIKED U BETTER - 82/100 Ah yes, the lead single from this album, while it is indeed catchy, I must concede that in terms of lead singles, I was pretty underwhelmed when it was released. Don't get me wrong, it's a solid pop-punk tune, but lead single? I've seen Jeff write absolute anthems for his albums, from Pash Rash, to USA, to the one two punch of Get Old Forever and You, In Weird Cities. I don't know, I still love the track, but for a lead single I just sort of expected a stronger punch from my favourite pop-punk artist.

DOUBT - 87/100 This song took some time to grow on me, after all, while Jeff has written slower songs like Blast Damage Days, never did he really release anything as lowkey as this song, but once I heard the breakdown kick in, it all made sense. All of the buildup, it finally clicked, and this instantly became my favourite song of the three singles released in the leadup to this album. On a sidenote shoutout Jeff for not succumbing to releasing 5 singles in order to promote his album, I hate when that happens.

FUTURE IS DUMB - 70/100 While Jeff still has songs that inject cynical energy that somehow makes you feel almost hopeful, nothing he has done post-2016 has hit quite as hard as WORRY. has, and that includes this song. I think just part of it was that  it was unrelenting, it was the catchiest songs you've ever heard packaged into little one and a half minute segments that all blended into each other. Probably the weakest song I've heard so far off this album, it's good, I'd listen to it again, but it's just another heaping of Jeff, and I was hoping it might be a little more than that, or an exceptionally good heaping of Jeff.

SOFT LIVING - 60/100 The first song on the album where I'm not too crazy over it. I doubt it'll affect the score too much, I still enjoy it, but it's just too lowkey and not catchy/interesting enough for me to really give it a score higher than a 60.

HEALMODE - 85/100 Generally, I find that I struggle to connect to slow songs, mostly just because I'm usually not in a mood for them, and they slow me down too much for me to really be happy. It's why usually, when I listen to albums that aren't in genres I enjoy, I tend to be pretty harsh on slower songs, and why it took me so long to "get into" Phoebe Bridgers. And while this song did take a bit to grow on me, looking back it's still good, though sort of out of left field, especially from Jeff, who I typically associate with pop-punk anthems.

LIFE ADMIN - 75/100 Shoutout Slaughter Beach, Dog man. I want Modern Baseball to come back but y'know what it's nice to know some of their members are still out there making music and kicking it. I'm not sure how I feel about this newer, slower Jeff. It's kind of surprising that it's coming from an album ominously titled HELLMODE, especially with the album cover and the all caps titles. Still a pretty good song though. 

I WANNA BE WRONG - 80/100 Yessir we are back to some classic, high energy upbeat Jeff. Certainly not the catchiest track I've ever heard, but it's good to know that Jeff still has it in him to come up with some riffs that manage to stay stuck in my ears longer than they ever should.

GRAVEYARD SONG - 80/100 Jeff delivers once more. While I'm still not too sure how I feel about Slow Rosenstock, overall it's still pretty good, and I'm always a sucker for some Jeff Rosenstock group vocals. 

3 SUMMERS - 85/100 I am writing the review for this last song very, very tired. But even in spite of my lack of energy, I just kept this 7 minute long track on and just listened as Jeff went on and on to soothe me. It's by no means my favourite closer, whether it be from any artist, or even Jeff himself, but y'know what? It works, and that's what matters.

Final Score: 82/100

    Look, I know it's annoying here me compare every single track on this album to another Jeff record, but it's not because I'm pining for a different time/era, it's just that I hold Jeff in that high of a regard. I mean, he is one of my favourite artists currently, and I was totally going to see him in concert in a couple of weeks regardless of how much I actually even enjoyed this album. So if you were looking for someone who was going to dunk on this album, or even give criticism that wasn't generally glowing, then you're looking in the wrong place, because even with my many, many obvious biases, Jeff Rosenstock remains one of my greatest biases, and assuming he never does anything too weird, I'll be standing by him with every project he releases.