Movement Metropolis Soundtrack grows into center age : NPR

Some individuals may need a tough time remembering the title Movement Metropolis Soundtrack, however for super-fans of early 2000s pop-punk and emo music, the band’s screeching synth and idiosyncratic lyrics are unforgettable.

Movement Metropolis Soundtrack first made their mark with the track “The Future Freaks Me Out,” which speaks to the anxieties of early maturity and the way self-medication is usually a type of self-destruction.

Now, greater than 20 years after that launch, the band is again with a brand new album — The Similar Outdated Wasted Fantastic World.

Because the title suggests, it is not precisely a departure from the band’s distinctive mix of advanced pop-rock preparations and darkish material, however it does showcase an evolution for a gaggle who provided the soundtrack for many individuals’s adolescence.

Lead singer Justin Pierre’s self-deprecating, humorous fingerprints are throughout this new album and its first single is an absolute return to kind.

So why did it take a decade since they first broke as much as launch new music?

“I can’t be wrangled. That is one reply,” Pierre says.

Clearly, Pierre may be wrangled, or there can be no new album to talk of, however it’s no less than a part-time job for guitarist Joshua Cain.

Nonetheless, it is that very high quality that helps Pierre write good music.

“The rationale ‘why now’ is that I really feel like there was sufficient for us to be impressed to put in writing, proper? There [were] intervals of our life the place we had gone in to put in writing a document and Justin’s like ‘I am tremendous glad, I do not know the way to do that any extra.’ I imply, what do you write about if you’re ****ing having the very best time of your life?” Cain says.

Whereas Justin Pierre nonetheless struggles together with his psychological well being, he is developed higher instruments to cope with it, and he is extra self-aware.

“I feel that this is likely to be the primary time I’ve ever finished this, however I used to be utterly dysregulated at rehearsals sooner or later,” Pierre says, talking to his bandmate. “I feel it took me an hour and a half to get it collectively, however I do not know in case you knew that was what I used to be doing.”

“Sure, I did,” Cain replies.

Pierre continues, “Often I simply permit myself to be in an anxious, chaotic fiddle all people else. And I simply realized, like this 12 months, that that was affecting individuals for 30 years.” Pierre jokes, “I am a really gradual learner.”

Pierre has all the time been trustworthy about his points on previous albums, social media and with the brand new track “Melancholia.”

Its refrain is a sequence of questions.

Why do not you say what you are going by means of?What’s inside you?

What you wanna do?

Why does it look like you wanna harm?Pierre says the track is certainly some type of inner dialogue, however factors out these questions are additionally common. He is seen this from followers.

“Folks would write messages saying, ‘I’ve this, too’ and ‘I’ve this as properly,'” he says, “and I’d suppose ‘wait, what do you imply too ? And as properly ?'”

Pierre wasn’t conscious that each one the issues followers had been saying to him had been what he was saying to them, by means of his music. “However what’s actually cool is that they had been all proper … they heard one thing I used to be doing, and I realized about who I used to be by means of the followers.”

Cain provides that “Melancholia” can also be type of the fruits of the private tragedies he and others and the band have gone by means of within the final ten years.

“You recognize we have had individuals we all know in our lives lose individuals that do not inform them that they are struggling, and … possibly [they] ask these questions later,” Cain says. “I like that track… it is so quirky and goofy, however unhappy. It is a actually attention-grabbing track on the album.”

When Movement Metropolis Soundtrack launched their debut album, George W. Bush was in workplace and music streaming was in its infancy. They hand-packaged CDs inside floppy disks and offered them out of their van. It has been a minute, however regardless that they’ve toured with mega acts like Fall Out Boy, whose frontman Patrick Stump additionally contributes to this album, and have a loyal fan base — their title nonetheless hasn’t caught on.

It is a reality Pierre and Cain joke about with the observe “You Know Who The **** We Are.” It is a memory a few “evening that everybody nearly died” at a home celebration that each Pierre and Cain attended after they had been youngsters, earlier than they even actually knew one another.

“[Joshua Cain] was, in the course of the day, at this child’s home. I assume his mother and father had been out of city,” Pierre begins. “I arrived at evening … and, properly, all people took acid after which this dude type of appeared out of nowhere, and he stated his title was … Riff.”

Pierre says, trying again, he is unsure if everybody noticed the identical acid-fueled apparition, however that on the time it felt like everybody had “simply the weirdest, craziest evening.”

This “Riff” was ultimately kicked out of the home after throwing potted vegetation and attacking partygoers, Pierre remembers, “After which we ended up chasing him down the road with skateboards and stuff… in order that’s how Josh [Cain] and I nearly met.”

Cain’s not so certain about that, however he does know the way the track obtained its title.

“We wanted to give you a bio,” he says. The band did not wish to rehash all their historical past, “and that Movement Metropolis Soundtrack grows into center age : NPR was our official, ‘you realize who the **** we’re,'” Cain says.

“Simply so silly,” Pierre laughs.

Cain and Pierre say they’re now lots nearer to determining who they’re — at age 49. As for the long run?

“Sure, the Future [still] freaks me out,” says Justin Pierre, “however I additionally need to imagine hope is a factor that also exists.”

Movement Metropolis Soundtrack’s Similar Outdated Wasted Fantastic World is out now.