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Headtrash is an e-zine by inc0gnemo.

Fighting Artificial Intelligence with artslop made by real humans. Humanslop. TM.

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M A D E _ I N _ N E W _ Y O R K

10.24.25

REVIEW: No Closer To Heaven (10th Anniversary Edition) by The Wonder Years

To release a remaster implies that the original mix was "bad" or "wrong," and that's what many fans would have you believe. The new mix definitely doesn't sound like it was recorded in a cave or Soupy's bathroom; it's much clearer-you can hear instrumental sections that were previously buried, you can understand lyrics much easier. A Song for Patsy Cline was always an immediate skip for me, but now I love it. Something about the original just felt like a slog, but now it feels fresh, lively, energetic. As an album, I think this is a mix I'd have appreciated when I was younger. It's punchier and has a much sharper punk bite. I suspect this is what many were missing in the original. But what I also think those people were missing was: the point. The Upsides in 2010 defined a new style of realist pop-punk that impacted the following decade of the scene, and the surprising slow-burn commercial success of the even more autobiographical Suburbia I've Given You All and Now I'm Nothing in 2012 cemented the band as standard-bearers of the genre writ large. By the time they recorded The Greatest Generation in 2013, Soupy was already denouncing their earliest joke-laden project (which you can still only find on CD or pirate sites) Get Stoked on It! (2007) and the band was trying to distance themselves from the albatross of the pop-punk label. While The Greatest Generation seems centered around the death of Soupy's grandfather, underpinned by the scam of the "American Dream" as told through the lens of a working-class band grappling with seemingly overnight fame, No Closer to Heaven (NCTH) in 2015 marked a plunge into much darker waters, more poetic, esoteric lyricism, and an overwhelming sense of weight-Soupy was burdened by years of constant, unrelenting loss; the people in his life were dropping dead like flies.

This was reflected in the heavy, crushing, thundering, dense mixing-it was an intentional part of the mise en scene-a hard pivot from the brighter, summery, underproduced, raw, hot guitar and cheek-smacking drums of their previous efforts. This wasn't a band writing songs about shallow posers at college parties and their shitty Philly apartments, but a band grappling with burying friends drowning in addiction, the dogma of institutionalized religion, the inherent oppression of capitalism, and negotiating the sacrifices of commitment versus a self-centered longing for artistic realization. Most importantly, it laid the groundwork for arguably their most significant project, the even more ambitious, experimental, indie-tinged art-rock concept album Sister Cities (2018)-a record reviled by fans upon release and not without hiccups, but the home to *hands down* their most important contributions to music and some of the most enduring cuts they've released to-date (for me, anyway). I hailed the band's triumphant return in 2022 with the record The Hum Goes On Forever as it saw them *get back* to their punk roots and make a fun, ripper of a record. It was tonally much less dark, and that felt refreshing-it even felt necessary coming out of the Covid era. And there's nothing inherently wrong with that. But did it see the band trying anything new? While a good record, I'm not sure it moved the conversation forward. And so this remix of NCTH begs the question: what even is the point of art? Is it just entertainment? Can you treat it like Burger King and request to "have it your way" when you don't like what the artist is serving? Are we only a few years away from people just typing into generative AI the kind of music they want to hear and cutting creators out of that process entirely? Spotify is already chock-full of pandering AI slop so convincing it's fooling millions of listeners. Have we become a society so focused on the product that we lost the romance of the process? The personhood and story behind the creation? Or, was the original mix on this album really just kind of muddy?

Some songs on this record weren't really meant to be as punk as they are on this re-release, either, like the band's first (and maybe only?) legitimate ballad You In January, which feels as though its been stripped of the tender bedroom-pop production that made the original such an intimate cut in the first place.

Is the new version of the record a fun listen? Of course. I think there's a place for both. I never picked up on the lines about urban gentrification on The Bluest Things on Earth until today when you could understand the vocals easier without looking up lyrics. If this updated vessel improves the dissemination of the project's original ideas, does this truly make it a revisionist work? Or does it simply future-proof the album for new generations of listeners? On songs like Thanks for the Ride, the sense of urgency and longing is palpable now, you can feel the strained passion in Soup's voice as he screams "Hey Hannah, don't go ... thanks for the ride." The explosive rage at humanity and disgust with both himself and God in Cardinals is wrenching. Maybe that's what I appreciate most about the remaster-you can hear Soupy's nuanced, unique vocal inflection, with all the subtleties, cracks, and imperfections you pick up on as all having personal meaning after following 15+ years of the man's prodigious output across multiple acts. The remastered album feels like an attack as opposed to introspective brooding. Maybe that shift from passive to active-resignation to determination-breathes new life into a complex record written by a deeply troubled man who will perhaps never really break free of the trauma and demons he's imprisoned by, but can find voice in joining the fight for something larger than the lore and legend of The Wonder Years. Maybe it's a remaster that fits the time in which we now live. As one of the most creatively significant bands in alternative punk of the 2010's, I suspect this will be a discussion for years to come.

07.06.25

Headtrash made its debut on the web today!

I will use this platform to share my thoughts on music, art, and design.

The site is still in development, so please check back periodically for content updates.

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