Album Review: Roam - 'Great Heights and Nosedives'

ROAM made their debut into a pop punk world full of exceptional talent with the likes of State Champs and Neck Deep particularly dominating the genre, is there any space left for newer pop punk bands to flourish? In the 5 years that ROAM have been about, they’ve made quite a name for themselves releasing a lot of music and jumping on full Warped tour slots. After the release of ‘Backbone’, there was always room for improvement but is their newest release ‘Great Heights and Nosedives’ enough?

Opening up with ‘Alive’, has the band showing that they’re refining their sound. Although it’s a little underwhelming as an opening track, the ideas are there. Bringing less hardcore vibes to this release than previous, is a step in the right direction for ROAM. The likes of ‘The Rich Life of a Poor Man’ along with ‘Playing Fiction’, bring a different pop vibe to the album, they’re catchy and they’re ultimately the tracks you’re destined to jump around to with your pals. The whole record is full of catchy chorus’ and addictive rhythms, the lyrics are written with meaning and the changes of pace throughout bring the release up to another level. ‘Curtain Call’ brings the emotion to the record, almost bringing back vibes of ‘Tracks’ from their last release but with a more refined sound.

Although this release is a more tightened and likeable version of their predecessor, it is still victim to the current pop-punk climate. ‘Left For Dead’ isn’t dissimilar to a lot of the tracks already out on the market. It’s unbelievably satisfying to see ROAM bringing this to the table to challenge the best of the best in pop punk right now but they’ve still got so far to go on this journey. The release isn’t full of 10/10 songs, there are some underwhelming tracks that just don’t make the cut at the top. If anything has come from this record, it shows that ROAM as a unit are stronger than they’ve ever been, the songs are tight and the whole concept is there. They’ve still got a long way to go but they’re not giving up anytime soon.

Review by Ami Ford

'Great Heights and Nosedives' is out on 13th October via Hopeless Records