‘Everything is fine and nothing matters anyway,” goes the refrain on All Time Low’s recent single. It’s an understandable sentiment, and though the song might signal a stylized indifference, it’s actually filled with news-fatigue and anxiety about the state of the world, with “a monster on the TV” requiring loud music to drown out the noise of current events. We’ve been there. Everybody copes in different ways, and cranking up the stereo is one approach.
All Time Low’s energetic punk-pop has achieved a kind of classic timelessness at this point, with the Maryland-based quarter marking their fifteenth year as a band in 2018. If the band’s early material sounded indebted to Blink-182, songs from 2017’s Last Young Renegade sound almost Springsteen-ish in their chronicling of young romance and the difficulty of sustaining youthful passion.
The band just released a pair of new singles this summer, one of which, “Birthday,” is a radio-ready ode to the pleasures of cake.
All Time Low performs with Dashboard Confessional at The Toyota Presents Oakdale Theater, 95 S. Turnpike Road, Wallingford, on Thursday, Aug. 16, at 7 p.m. Tickets are $22 and up. 203-265-1501, livenation.com.
