Album Review: You Me At Six - Cavalier Youth

Behind the scenes, the completion of Cavalier Youth forced You Me At Six (YMAS) to operate differently – and perhaps a little harder – than in their previous records, but their more productive work ethic doesn't necessarily translate through a large portion of the songwriting in their latest, fourth album Cavalier Youth. While opening track Too Young To Feel This Old provokes a glimmer of promise for the record's remaining contents (reaffirmed all the more in the more structurally impressive Lived A Lie), Cavalier Youth progresses with a disappointing lack of variety. Save for the big, optimistic, atypically YMAS pop-punk anthem Fresh Start Fever, the album operates at a mostly unwavering pace, differentiated only by mere subtleties in timing – and barely at all in structure or lyrical content (which, to no one's surprise, predominately focuses on the subject of romance).

For the most part, Cavalier Youth is catchy and easily digestible, but YMAS have played things a little too safe with this one, and, as a result, it isn't quite the stand-out record we were hoping for from the outfit, and nor is it an entirely memorable one on the whole. Evidence of the band's growth since their inception is certainly there, but given the success of their third album Sinners Never Sleep (released in 2011), it comes as quite a let-down that the British three-piece didn't attempt to be any bolder this time around.