Hopeless Romantic - Bouncing Souls

The Bouncing Souls' fourth album is an improvement over its predecessors due to the greater amount of effort that has evidently gone into its creation. No longer does every song sound the same as the last, and the album is a more generous length at over forty minutes. This is still essentially 1990s punk worshipping the classic mainstream tradition and striving for commercial favour, something most evident in the distinct lack of anger present even in the songs that concern fighting, which end up sounding completely amicable thanks to their emphasis on melody; 'Fight to Live' is more of an upbeat party anthem, while the relationship break-up of 'Wish Me Well ...

The Bouncing Souls second release on Epitaph records, Hopeless Romantic came out in 1999. From the title of the album you could think the Souls had gone all emo on us. Listening to the album your set straight (thank God) there's no winging on about girls, no songs about how that girls boyfriends a dick, no going on about how she won't go to the prom with you, and no songs about how you had a dream last night where that girl you crush on went out with you. Instead the Hopeless Romantic comes from the fact the Souls romanticize everything and because 10 years later they where doing the same it made them hopeless... hence the title. So instead you get a punk album ...