Album Review: You Me at Six – Truth Decay

Punk Rock Comes Full Circle

English punk rock band You Me at Six is going back to their roots with their eighth studio album Truth Decay. Coming off of several anniversary tours, the band is resurrecting their original sound with this nostalgic scrapbook of punk rock bangers.

Emerging during the height of pop punk in the mid-2000s, You Me at Six is now capitalizing on the resurgence of the genre with Truth Decay. After attending the punk nostalgic When We Were Young festival, one of the band’s guitarists, Max Helyer, said in an interview, “I thought all the emo kids disappeared! I really did. And they haven’t. They’re still there.”

Truth Decay is a homage to the OG punk rockers, exploring classic punk and emo themes of love, toxicity and heartbreak with a fair amount of angst and dread mixed in. According to the band’s Instagram, “We wanted to make a retrospective album, in which we looked back, to go forward. We were hellbent on making an album that we felt reflected our fanbase.”

The album features several catchy tracks like “Mixed Emotions,” “heartLESS” and “No Future? Yeah Right” which features Rou Reynolds from Enter Shikari. However, a few songs feel a bit derivative. The guitar riff that starts the album is near identical to an iconic Red Hot Chili Peppers riff, and the melody in “Who Needs Revenge When I’ve Got Ellen Rae” sounds similar to the melody in the emo classic “Thnks fr th Mmrs” by Fall Out Boy. However, given that the album is purposefully retrospective, these imitations may be forgiven.

According to an interview with You Me at Six, the band took a maximalist approach to building the album, layering in tons of guitar tracks at the beginning, then taking some of them away and adding lyrics at the end. This approach is evident throughout. The guitars sound phenomenal, but some of the lyrics feel like they were an afterthought. Songs like “God Bless The 90s Kids” are trite and probably could have been left off the album.

That being said, the guitar-first approach is a winning strategy for the album as a whole. “Breakdown” is an especially strong track both sonically and lyrically. “My heart and my mind can’t synchronize / I’m taking part in my own dеmise … And I don’t wanna throw my life away / But I’m about to have a fucking breakdown / Throw a peace sign on my way out,” sings lead vocalist Josh Franceschi.

Franceschi’s vocals are incredibly strong on this album, ranging from growly and screamo on “No Future? Yeah Right” to silvery and melodic on “A Love Letter to Those Who Feel Lost” which is a duet with Cody Frost. Listeners who love emo and punk rock but cringe at a “pop-punk accent” will appreciate Franceschi’s vocals on Truth Decay.

You Me at Six strikes the perfect balance between staying true to their origins and pushing the envelope with Truth Decay. For punk rockers who think that no new music could ever top the classic punk rock anthems, You Me at Six is happy to prove you wrong.