Album Review: Life’s Going Great by Games We Play (2024)
Title: Sets up the album perfectly in that it can be read as either sarcastic or sincere and works either way.
Album Art: Highly relatable facial expression 10/10.
Overall:
This album is for pop-punk people with real jobs, pop-punk people who have bills to pay and car problems and sexual dysfunction and worries about their weight. In short, this record is a pop-punk album for grown-ups with grown-up concerns who still love when “head” is sung as “yeeeeaaaaad” and who still crave the sweet sounds of early-aughts power chords. Games We Play knocked it right out of the skate park with this one, it’s relatable, catchy, honest, and so much fun all the way through.
Track By Track:
1. The End
This song is an incredible mission statement for the album it opens, its catchy to the point that unsuspecting bystanders will be forced to head bang against their will, and contains a plethora of classic Emmyn Calleiro lyrics like “her butt is bigger than my insecurities.” This song got me hooked on the band and I’ve never once looked back.
2. Typical Me
It takes a lot of (pardon the pun) balls to sing a line like “I’ve got a small-ass dick” with your whole chest on your debut full length album and Mr. Calleiro definitely demonstrates the size of his song writing chops with Typical Me. The sound is upbeat and punchy, the lyrics are wry and self-deprecating without getting too mopey, and you don’t even have to learn all the words because you can just “na na na” along with the chorus.
3. Girl-Shaped Crater
This is a sweet, heartfelt ballad that stands out thanks to (once again) Emmyn Calleiro’s quirky lyricism on lines like “if you don’t have a god complex I’ll give you one.” We also get our first glimpse of Emmyn’s endearing vulnerability as he worries that his feelings for the titular girl “might come out kind of weird.” Best played on a boom box outside your crush’s window in the rain.
4. Oh So Blue
Oh So Blue cranks up the instrumentation with a driving beat, a catchy simple guitar riff, and fantastic drums. It’s also awfully considerable of Games We Play to give the listener a little interlude in which to catch their breaths before the beat storms back in to steal your lunch money.
5. Petty Enemy
Yet another lyrical highlight, Petty Enemy is the absolute perfect song to blast in the car when you’re pissed off enough to kind of want to ram your vehicle into something. Plus I may never have heard a more creative and devastating insult than “ I hope you meet all your heroes and they think you suck” you fucking killed him dude.
6. Interlude
AKA Emmyn Calleiro proves his pop-punk credentials once and for all by having Pete Wentz insult him on his own record.
7. too young.
This is a real heart-wringer and it gets right to the point without the veneer of snark that obscures some of the other emotional moments on the record. This is a gorgeous little lament for all the relationships that couldn’t quite pass the test of time. Its sweet, nostalgic, a little remorseful and personally is one of my favourite songs on the album. Listening to this feels like being back in your home town, driving down the street your first girlfriend or boyfriend lived on and realizing you don’t recognize the neighbourhood anymore.
8. So Bad
Alright we’re not sad-sad anymore get that heartrate back up! So Bad gets the party rolling again with lyrics that, as per everywhere else on this record, perfectly blend wry, self-deprecating, humour – “they know how to do sex” –with sincere, self-reflective vulnerability – “I run from what I want.”
9. Pretty Boy
This is a bit of breather track on the album, its lighter and breezier in tone than most of the other tracks and has a simple, relatable message of jealousy and insecurity – plus a cheeky little reference to cunnilingus.
10. Round & Round
After you’ve caught your breath and chilled out with Pretty Boy we into Round & Round and straight into a panic attack. The emotion here is laid bald-faced and bare instead of being cloaked in pithy one liners and the whole track sounds as frantic and raw as a stripped wire. Emmyn sings about the discordant, claustrophobic feeling of knowing how you should feel and being equally aware that you don’t feel that way. I’ll get into this a little more on the next song, but I need to give props to Emmyn Calleiro for so honestly singing about body image issues as a male performer.
11. Naked
As mentioned above, you don’t get a lot of male artists (especially in the “rock” space) publishing songs about their body issues and Mr. Calleiro does so honestly, unapologetically, and with the wry humour that characterizes so much of his song writing – bravo sir. Aside from heaviness of the lyrics themes though, this is a really fun song, with campy background moans reminiscent of a certain notorious GnR track and an amazingly relatable scream just after the 2:30 mark.
12. All My Untalented Friends (Ooolala)
The plastic-boob-filled nepo-baby pool party described in this song paints a hilarious picture of the current music as seen through the eyes of a self-conscious but never overly constructed outsider. Plus I have to once again give my lyrical flowers to “bathroom lines NOT-TO-PEE” – it’s great.
13. Life’s Going Great
This is a really fun and highly singalongable album closer that hopes your ex is as miserable as they used to make you – sort of a pop-punk My Kink is Karma for the Chapel Roan fans out there.