Bowling For Soup – Sorry For Partyin'
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Bowling For Soup’s trademark sense of humour and fun has served them well over the years, with their career based on ridiculously catchy songs and tongue-in-cheek silliness. Their songs carry a sense of childish fun that few bands can pull off, but which makes BFS incredibly endearing. ‘Sorry For Partyin’ is no different; the style is just more of the same, but it still works. To me, their albums have always been like a great big happy pill.
It kicks off with ‘A Really Cool Dance Song’, which is a comedic jab in the ribs to the slew of bands suddenly dropping their sound and releasing keyboard-laden tunes in an effort to hit the mainstream. It’s a strong start, and ironically it actually IS quite a cool dance song that would likely serve them well in the charts. Would it be pushing it too far if they released it as a single?
Their two singles, released in the run up to ‘Sorry For Partyin’ follow next, and continue the strong opening of the album. ‘No Hablo Ingles’ is well put together and genuinely funny, and ‘My Wena’ is catchy and loveable, despite the childish subject matter and strong reliance on innuendo.
These are themes that flow through the album as a whole, with ‘BFFF’, ‘Hooray For Beer’ and ‘I Can’t Stand LA’ following suit. Typically, there are a few skewed love songs here too, with the likes of ‘Love Goes Boom’, ‘I Gotchoo’ and ‘Me With No You’ following the usual pop-punk love-song template, but still managing to retain the personality of BFS. Think along the lines of classic BFS track and fan favourite, ‘Belgium’.
The only real misfire on offer here is ‘America (Wake Up Amy)’, an attempt at faux-politics that didn’t really do anything for me. It could be that something is lost in the trip across the Atlantic, but it was just missing the usual charm and therefore lacked something as a Bowling For Soup song.
Overall, it’s a very enjoyable album, the sound of a band doing what they love for fans who love them. They still retain their pop sensibilities, but the humour has been refined with a lot more hits than misses. After the slight hiccup of the last album, it’s a very welcome return to ‘Drunk Enough To Dance’ levels of goodness.
Rating: 
immensely enjoyable.
