REVIEW: Meet Me @ The Altar's "Past // Present // Future" (Fueled by Ramen)

Internet friends gone pop punk sensations Meet Me @ The Altar have finally released their debut album. If you’ve missed any part of this story it is just about as simple as that. Edith Victoria, Tea Campbell and Ada Juarez all met on the internet and began writing music together and now have toured all over, played some big festivals including the legendary When We Were Young and have even seen mainstream success outside of a live setting finding their music in Taco Bell commercials. I myself was really looking forward to a full length from the band after spending a couple of years impressed by their output with some of my favorite songs in the genre being put out and the Model Citizen EP blowing me away just a few years ago. Unfortunately now that the record is here I feel like some of the initial shine to the band I felt has worn off.


It’s hard to exactly place as nothing about Meet Me @ The Altar’s sound has really been changed but it feels like whatever it was that made them stand out among their genre contemporaries has sort of been snuffed out. This entire record reeks of Travis Barker’s cookie cutter brand of pop punk that has dominated playlists for the 2020s and he managed to accomplish it on this band’s album without actually showing up to be there. I also feel that the trio tries and fails to do things that they think will put them on the same level as the big names in 2000s alternative with Fall Out Boy influence through out, “Kool” sounding like an Avril Lavigne song and I’m sorry, I have to say it, don’t crucify me, but “Same Language” is quite literally just a Paramore song ala brand new eyes, and is the lyrical cousin to “Native Tongue.” I think my biggest struggle with all of the influence stuff is that none of these songs are even bad but not a single one stands out. In fact it only took me two and a half listens to realize that I know this record inside and out, not an effect you want on any release. You want a listener to be rewarded by relistens.


While no song is really bad I feel like there are some songs on the track list that are particular sins. “A Few Tomorrows” feels so disingenuous in fact pretty much all of the vulnerable moments on Past // Present // Future feel manufactured and begging you to “please, just relate, please buy my record.” That and it’s been said by basically every reviewer on the internet but I have to call out “Say It.” Wherein Meet Me @ The Altar tells you outright that they are definitely not industry plants to the tune of Taco Bell’s newest theme song, co written by John Ryan whose also wrote many of your favorite songs by One Direction, Maroon 5, Pitbull and more.


My take away from Past // Present // Future is that a band I thought had some real potential has been ruined by their labels touch, Fueled by Ramen claims another victim, but the trio ultimately manage to come up with some good playlist and set list staples in the process.

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