Runner Runner’s resume reads like a pop-punk supergroup — former members of Over It, Rufio, and Don’t Look Down — but on their self-titled debut full length, the first release from David Letterman’s C.E. Music label (in conjunction with Capital Records), you’d be hard-pressed to find any vestiges of their punk past. Sleek, shiny radio pop is the order of the day, and for better or worse, Runner Runner deliver it in spades.
The album leads with its best foot forward. Opening track “So Obvious” is punchy and propulsive, with harmonies and hooks for days, bursts of guitar and hyperenthusiastic “go-go-go” vocals in all the right places, and a sugar-sweet chorus: “It’s obvious that my heart beats for you // beats for you // beats for you.” It also bears more than a passing resemblance to Metro Station’s “Shake It,” but if Runner Runner are going to crib a riff here and there, at least they’re picking catchy source material. Likewise, “Unstoppable“‘s sing-song intro sounds calls to mind the opening verses of Taylor Swift’s “You Belong With Me” before morphing into a “we are // we are // we are // unstoppable!” rallying cry. Perhaps best of all is “She’s My Kinda Girl,” with a spoken prechorus that explodes into a chorus of “oh oh oh”s right of out All Time Low’s “Damned If I Do Ya (Damned If I Don’t)” and an indelible hook that could leave you shouting “beat beat! beat beat!” in all sorts of inappropriate places for the next week.
It’s not all acceleration and adrenaline. “Papercuts” is the consummate power ballad, longing lonely verses swelling into a soaring lament. The mid-tempo “Life After You,” with synth-strings and handclaps surrounding a solid hook, rises above album-track fodder. And the sweetly lovely “I Can’t Wait”, with its acoustics and strings, is sure to soundtrack a wedding or three.
Which is not to say that Runner Runner is a great LP. Lyrically…honestly, don’t bother thinking too hard about the lyrics. Even for lightweight pop music, there’s a real lack of depth here— just stanza after stanza of clichés on love and loss, but mostly love. There’s also a real lack of specificity in the lyrics. Yes, this is clearly a calculated attempt to make this collection of songs as broadly applicable as possible, to create something everyone can relate to, and it’s a trope that’s been used to great success by bands dating back to the Beatles. But Runner Runner’s lyrics tend to come off as slippery, painting archetypes instead of stories, seeming as though they could be to and from anybody, but never from or for you. Perhaps worst of all is “Falling,” a ballad whose sentiment of encouragement and support through tough times is fatally marred by an obtuse, near-insulting chorus of “When you think you’re falling // just get up // just get up.”
The same issues apply to the production as well. It’s possible to over-polish even the shiniest pop song, and producer Dave Darling has sanded off every corner and jagged bit in sight, leaving the whole affair a little too wimpy. While the songs compositionally grow over repeated listens, there’s not much to unpack in the mix; it’s all very limpid and surface-level. It’s the sort of radio-ultraslickness that recent releases from Boys Like Girls and Mayday Parade have also suffered. And when the band dips into pure electronic pop in “Heart Attack,” it misses soulless and veers over to positively soul-sucking.
The closing track, “Running Away,” finally takes a darker turn, but with its sad-sack lyrics and half-anguished “whoa”s, the posturing feels hollow. Runner Runner clearly hold all the cards, but they haven’t quite learned how to play a winning hand.
(Early promo copies of this album shipped with a different closing song, strangely enough also titled Running Away. It’s a quiet number that cracks the hopeful façade the band holds up throughout the disc, betraying a darkness and depth of emotion otherwise held close to their vest. It’s the most affecting and poignant track from the band, honest and raw, unabashedly sad, with sparse guitar and piano lines and perfectly spare production. It’s everything the album is missing, and it’s well worth your time to track down.)
**.5/*****
*This review was composed by Jesse Richman
