New albums reviewed: featuring 5 Seconds of Summer, Mike Shinoda

Fresh music Friday with new albums reviewed right here right now

5 Seconds of Summer

Youngblood (EMI)

3.5 stars

Welcome to the genre-fluid 5 Seconds of Summer.

When the Sydney band exploded they were the gateway act for One Direction fans looking for something more rock.

Two albums of punk pop-lite down, their ’80s falsetto and funk-tinged (and underrated) Ghostbusters song Girls Talk Boys was a signpost that change was coming.

This third album dials down the punk for experimenting in the wide world of pop. Gone are the rock producers (including the Madden Brothers) they were using three years ago, with a string of pop and R & B hitmakers pushing them out of their initial comfort zone.

As they’ve found here, in pop music almost anything goes.

It’s working. The surprisingly minimal title track, Youngblood, is their biggest Australian hit to date. And it sounds like a totally different band to their other No. 1, She Looks So Fine.

That radio smash (in Australia at least) has got 5SOS HQ back on course after comeback Want You Back (a strong, funk-led pop tune written with Shape Of You co-author Steve Mac) wasn’t the global hit they needed in the short attention era.

Lie To Me, like Youngblood, was made with the team behind Camila Cabello’sLatina banger Havana. But it’s more of a romantic sea shanty closer to the soundtrack of Grease than Good Charlotte. It’s weird but it works and suits their vocals. Indeed this album’s hero is Luke Hemmings — his voice the driving force on most songs. Ballad Ghost of You, is given massive production with scores of strings and comes out the other side like their Fix You, purpose built for arenas and the torch function on mobile phones.

If Valentine sounds uncannily like 21 Pilots’ Stressed Out that’s because Mike Elizondo, who produced 21P’s Blurryface, worked on it.

They seem to enjoy covering as much new terrain as possible. They fast-forward from Los Angeles 1984 wildly catchy new-wave via a Swedish pop factory (Talk Fast), to Weezer gone goth (Why Won’t You Love Me — co written with Rivers Cuomo) to the Police meets Nine Inch Nails on Meet You There.

Julia Michaels co-writes If Walls Could Talk (you already know what the lyrical theme is) and the chorus (with more Hemmings falsetto action) finds them channelling Diplo and Bieber over Blink 182. Better Man is seriously Sheeran while the quirky Empty Wallets (with another modern hitmaker on board, Justin Tranter) taps into the dark arts of Panic! at the Disco or Fall Out Boy.

Oldschool fans still desperate for rock can get a fix in parts of Moving Along, Woke Up In Japan and the heavy riff action on More, just before the synths kick in. CAMERON ADAMS

VERDICT: Summer moved on to new musical frontiers

TRY THIS IF YOU LIKE: The Police, Panic! At the Disco

MIKE SHINODA

Post Traumatic (Warner)

3.5 stars

ARE you ready for some uneasy listening? Here Mike Shinoda navigates the stages of grief after the death of his Linkin Park bandmate, Chester Bennington. Over Again details it in real time, written before and after a tribute concert. Linkin Park albums were always intense, but Post Traumatic is public therapy designed to help himself (and the band’s fans) heal — from shock to anger and even some levity on Ghosts. Place to Start features phone messages from friends calling up to check in, while titles like Nothing Makes Sense Anymore and Hold It Together are there for a reason. Musically he continues Linkin Park’s recent work of expanding musical horizons with unexpected guests, with soulful singer K. Flay on poppy album highlight Make It Up As I Go. /CAMERON ADAMS

TRY THIS IF YOU LIKE … Fort Minor, Deftones

ROLLING BLACKOUTS COASTAL FEVERHope Downs (Ivy League)

4 stars

“We talked about the land of our foremothers” is the sort of woke thinking this band present us on Mainland. The spangle-pop, seemingly carefree Melbourne quintet are the sound of guitars dancing together, play-fighting, winding each other up, pushing each other in a trolley down a ravine at 3am. Ragged and ecstatic. And there’s some real substance to what they do, making the personal political. Bellarine and Cappuccino show off a variety of moods./MIKEY CAHILL

TRY THIS IF YOU LIKE … Pavement, Foals, Bowie