ALBUM REVIEW: LISTEN UP! BY NEW FOUND GLORY
Reviewed by Cecilia Pattison-Levi
Release date 20 February 2026
Florida based New Found Glory's 11th studio album is ‘Listen Up!’ and it’s a return to late 1990s pop-punk energy. It’s full of fun, love and a ‘f@#k cancer philosophy’. The album has been created in the shadow of guitarist Chad Gilbert's cancer battle and the reality a diagnosis like that brings to the person and his loved ones. You tend to start seeing through the bullshit of the wellness and “happy clappy” set and those who trade on despair and disease.
The album opens with ‘Boom Hero’ that takes aim at the false hero who makes songs that are a “soundtrack/making money off people’s sadness” and “sing along to your heart breaks”. The following song is ‘100%’ with its guitar riff-heavy soundscape and its an anthemic style track focusing on overcoming hardships. Then, ‘Laugh It Off’ is a song about laughing bad things off before you cry and the guitar has that wailing sound that mirrors the lyrics as the “train runs off its rails”.
By this stage of ‘Listen Up!’, the 10 songs have established a pattern with a guitar riff and dynamic drumming approach. The songs have that upbeat blend of nostalgic pop-punk but with a heavier and raw lyrical style. The album has a mature soundscape that has its core a focus on the joy and chaos of life, even if it sucks sometimes, and it is full of gratitude and friendship that survival brings.
The joy of “kisses on your forehead” as the protagonist just wrote you ‘A Love Song’. It’s a blast of pop-punk joy. The song ‘Beer And Blood Stains’ is a gritty, upbeat, and authentic song with a heavy drum beat, big bassline beat and guitars as the song celebrates “the best years of our lives” as “we made it out alive” from dives and rock ‘n’ roll shows. There is a huge breakdown in the song and it’s an album highlight with its chant of ‘Florida’. It is followed by ‘Medicine’ and its another big love pop-punk song with a thrumming bassline.
The song ‘Treat Yourself’ is a fast-paced West Coast punk style song about being kinder to yourself in the face of hard times as it urges to “give yourself a break”. Then, ‘Dream Born Again’ is an album highlight with the pop-punk sparkling melodic hook and echoing vocals. ‘You Got This’ is about moving forward as the protagonist asks for people to “leave us alone” as they “look for the good times”. The song has a positive and life affirming energy as it seeks the ideal of “let the good times roll”.
The album closes out with ‘Frankenstein’s Monster’ with a big drum kick and fast pace punk energy in the driving guitars. The cancer is a monster where facing it means “breathing through it” and its sweeping “depression”. The song encourages us to think positively in the face of being overwhelmed by “dark clouds” as it tells us to be “who I am” and “to feel alive again” by “plug me in” and celebrating connection. And that’s the point.
‘Listen Up!’ has a lot to say about the forces holding us down in life and the importance of connection. This creative, and positive, album’s spirit is indeed a testament to resilience. In the face of Chad Gilbert’s ongoing battle with an aggressive metastatic cancer, it shows the power in the relationships between the band and the power to create music as vocalist Jordan Pundik, bassist Ian Grushka and drummer Cyrus Bolooki to drive forward on this life journey. ‘Listen Up!’ has pushed the band to connect with each other creatively, and take life by the throat, and live it!
