REVIEW: Misplaced breaks Pop Punk Barriers with their New Single "ffs"
Ranging from singing about their youth to singing about a long lost lover, the pop-punk subgenre is always rapidly growing with exciting new bands emerging every minute. We may have just found our new favorite one, Misplaced. These Scottish heavy hitters are new to the pop-punk ring; however they did not come to play. The success of their first singles garnered attention from fans and industry insiders alike and in January 2021 and with the release of their new single “FFS,” Misplaced has captured that nostalgic pop-punk essence we all know and love.
The track begins with the feedback of the guitar, followed by the quick strumming of the rhythm guitar alongside a few taps of bass drum, and slowly builds up into an explosion of pure unadulterated pop-punk. We’re already sucked in just by the instrumentals alone, but as the vocals come in we’re immediately transported to our favorite underground venue.
Reminiscent of Neck Deep’s Life’s Not Out To Get You, “ffs” rings out with gritty-sounding power chords, shaking us to our core and making us want to open up a one-person pit in our bedrooms. No strangers to having cavernous lyrics, Misplaced has left us to dissect the perplexing yet sensational lyricism behind “ffs.”
The first verse reads:
Drag my body through the door,
Watch me bleed out on this floor,
So sick and tired of these same four walls but I'm sure they hate me more.
No I don't want more sleep that's alright,
The Devil in my dreams don't play nice,
He set up camp, s
at on my shoulderAnd he doesn't like that I got older.
We are left with our own imagination when listening to this smashing track. To us, it seems that lead singer, Kyle Beaton is hesitant about leaving a comfortable situation. Perhaps it is a person or place, we’ll let you be the judge of that. Nonetheless, it is a feeling all too familiar to most of us.
Fast forward to the last verse:
This war is mine
I'll fight out on the road past all the warning signs
I won't reply
To the voices in my head they don't mean right
If I die tonight
Just gag my screams there's not much left of me inside
Oh I fell
Oh I fell
I fell in love with a lie
These powerful lyrics lean towards the idea of finally breaking away from the voice in your head that tells you to stay in your current situation because it’s comfortable and familiar, and not to care if you get hurt in the process.
The music video to accompany the track does it justice as their music pays ode to the 2000’s punk rock era. The video is gritty, grungy, and quite chaotic. It flashes between mediums of video and stop-motion. Some scenes from the video hold a colder blue queue to them as you would see in older music videos such as One step closer by Linkin Park, or Little Things by Good Charlotte, while other scenes look like they were straight from VHS. The stop-motion pictures had textures of a worn out photograph that had been drawn on. The Raw-ness of both of the elements combined really helps set the scene for the type of music they’re putting out, and really reeled us in as we listened to this track.
Misplaced have, intentionally or not, have made it a point to show that they’re ready to revive the spirit and early influences that come with creating Pop-punk. From their music, to the way they’ve decided to present their art through music videos, they’ve curated a unique yet distinct sound like we’ve ever heard from such a contemporary band. Just as they’re ready to take the scene by storm, we’re ready to accompany them. We can’t wait to see what this band has in store.
