‘Weird Kids’ is the second full-length from We Are The In Crowd, a band teetering on the brink of being, in the words of one immaculately coiffured broadcaster, kind of a big deal.
Fronted by Taylor Jardine, the Poughkeepsie natives tread a narrow line between pop and rock, but have been shunted into the pop-punk category, partly due to their link with Hopeless Records and partly due to a penchant for power chords.
‘Weird Kids’ is a shimmering slice of pop music, boasting spick and span production from John Feldmann, Goldfingerfrontman and producer of records for everyone from the Used to Panic at the Disco! and Hilary Duff, and its share of rousing choruses.
It’s also terribly uneven. Far too often it dips into maudlin ballad territory, whether on album closer Windows In Heaven, the horrible Come Back Home or sections of Long Live The Kids, a song that’s been popped straight out of the ‘inspirational’ tin that’s such a favourite of Katy Perry. Manners, meanwhile, does force the Paramore issue with its half-time chug of a chorus.
What makes these diversions all the more grating is the spunk and winning attitude displayed elsewhere. Jardine is absolutely infectious on The Best Thing (That Never Happened), offering to break jaws and dishing out a neat line in rhyming putdowns: “So toxic, you ain’t nothing but a prick.”
Attention and Dreaming Out Loud are equally as effective, the former recalling Midtown circa ‘Living Well Is The Best Revenge’ and the latter boasting a driving chorus that swats aside the song’s meek opening, with Jardine and co-vocalist Jordan Eckes combining to good effect.
It’s hard not to see We Are The In Crowd hitting the big time and ‘Weird Kids’, despite its many flaws, may just be the album to do it for them. There will be lighters in the air, and there will be lyrics that hit home. But, crucially, there's evidence to suggest that they can do much, much better.
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