Four Year Strong

After adopting a heavier sound and more serious tone for 2011's In Some Way, Shape, or Form, Massachusetts-based pop-punks Four Year Strong took a few years off from recording. Their evolution from exuberant easycore champions to unsmiling hardcore act left many fans scratching their heads, but when they re-emerged with 2014's Go Down in History EP, whose streamlined sound split the difference between their light and dark sides, they once again managed to come out on top. A year later, they built on this new sound with their self-titled fifth album, and first for California indie Pure Noise Records. A mighty mix of the band's trademark hooky pop-punk and raucous, headbanging hardcore, it's considered by the bandmembers to be their rawest, most honest effort yet. ~ Timothy Monger