Four Year Strong is a pop-punk band formed in Massachusetts in 2001. Ten years of music and only five of mainstream fame. During the past five years they have released five albums: Rise or Die Trying(2007), Explains It All(2009), Enemy of the World(2010), and In Some Way, Shape or Form(2011)
Consisting of Alan Day on guitar/vocals, Dan O’Connor on guitar/vocals, Josh Lyford on keyboards/vocals(2006-2011), Joe Weiss on bass, and Jake Massucco on drums.
The bands sound has changed considerably since Rise or Die Trying, but the album encompassed all that FYS are. Throwing out insane amounts of energy bonded to each song and riff. Their songs were described as happy hardcore, and were almost the epitome of a mix of the two genres(pop and hardcore).
From that point, two years later they recorded an album full of nineties covers titled ‘Explains It All’, inferring that these songs were what shaped their childhood and made the who they are today. The album strays from Rise or Die Trying but changes each song just enough to give the audience the flavor they were looking for in the album. This cover of ‘Bullet with Butterfly Wings’ is not as good as the Smashing Pumpkins version, but still embodies the essence of nineties grunge while keeping true to that hardcore sound.
Four Year Strong released their next album in spring of 2010 titled ‘Enemy of the World’. Many fans were skeptical the band was not going to return to their original sound, but like any incredible artist Four Year Strong delivered a record that made ‘Rise or Die Trying’ look like Charmander under the shadow of Charizard. They brought everything to the table and were becoming one of the biggest pop-punk bands in the world. The sound was more driving than the previous records, with obvious attitude and a message that they were NOT going anywhere.
Presently, Four Year Strong are enjoying the praise of their new album In Some Way, 
Shape or Form whilst touring the United States and Canada. The new album has been met by fans with excitement, disappointment, and neutrality alike. People have called it ‘uninspired’ and ‘Foo Fighter-esque’. It sold over 6,500 copies in its first week and ranked at number 88 on the Billboard top 200. These results are nearly half of what ‘Enemy of the World’ accumulated, ranking at number 47 on the Billboard top 200 and selling 12,000 copies in its first week. The album is definitely a new sound for Four Year Strong, and in my opinion, they seem to have lost a lot of traits they once had like attitude, complex rhythm/riffing, and that urgency the other records carried. However, I can still hear Four Year Strong and I admittedly love the record. My favorite track is “The Security of the Familiar, the Tranquility of Repetition”
FYS 2011
