Album Review: The July Crowd: The Way I Felt Last Year

Northwest emo/pop-punk band The July Crowd maps out the journey of grief, anger, and the voids in between in their latest EP release, The Way I Felt Last Year.

A lot of music in the pop-punk and metal scenes lately has focused on themes like grief, growth, and the burdens we carry. The July Crowd, an emo/pop-punk band from the Northwest, is no exception. Their new release, The Way I Felt Last Year, follows 2023’s Seat of Your Pants and feels like the band is finally letting out emotions they’ve held in for a long time. While they’ve always had that urgent pop-punk sound, this album dives into heavier territory. The Way I Felt Last Year is less about high energy and more about the weight of those feelings that hold this energy back. Shaped by loss, grief, and the often quiet private work of rebuilding oneself after such events, when the world has already moved on from it. Framed around some of the hardest times the band has experienced at this point in their lives, this new EP takes the raw emotional fuel of losing a loved one and the emotional wreckage of a broken home and finds the inner strength to open up about them.

At the start of the EP, the weight of all of this is palpable. The EP doesn’t just want us to feel that grief; they want us to embrace the pain and, in real time, find a way through it. “Did You Ever Think of Me” and “Like Home” dive into a sonic realm caught between the past and the present. Moving into a more layered and emotionally resonant space, there is a clear distinction between the sunshine-infused brightness that inhabited Seat of Your Pants. Instead, they trade some of those sunrays for a more muted sunset atmosphere that is textured and deeply reflective. The guitars feel weighty, the choruses more damaged and bruised, with their pacing more straightforward and deliberate. Such evolution comes with a few tradeoffs. The production makes most of these tracks, such as “Photosynthesis” and “One of These Days,” strive for something a bit more lush and mature, accenting what some polish can bring to the band's melodic intuition and emotional resonance. While some might feel it sands down a bit of the rawness featured in their earlier work, such production has helped heighten the emotional clarity the sonic landscape aims for in poignant moments like “Since You Left.”

The Way I Felt Last Year shows growth from a band learning to balance vulnerability and letting each track breathe without leaning on typical pop-punk structures. What makes this EP so compelling is how emotionally specific the journey is. As it walks us through these stages of grief, anger, acceptance, and the voids in between, intentionally, from its beginning track “Did You Ever Think of Me” to the very last, each one mirrors these shifting emotional mental states, giving such confessional works some depth. Sometimes one wants to write with intent to garner listeners or numbers. For others, it's about finding the space to breathe when it feels like life's struggles are suffocating every aspect of life one tries to find peace in, and in this case, the band has done this within the time it allotted itself for such deep emotional expression. This EP is strong, and while it may seem biased, one finds themselves wanting just a few more tracks to complete this otherwise great vision this band has crafted. However, if one can make an EP that leaves one wanting more, then The July Crowd appears to be onto something good.  

Dig this EP? Check out some of their other music down below!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVraIXVewLY