May 16

Lagwagon's "May 16" opens with one of the most recognizable clean-guitar figures in melodic hardcore — a descending, almost pretty arpeggio that Joey Cape lets breathe for a full sixteen bars before the band detonates behind him. It's the sound of a punk band that had learned patience. The production on *Let's Talk About Feelings* is warmer and less trebly than earlier Lagwagon, with Chris Rest's leads sitting in a bed of chorused guitar rather than sawing over it. Cape sings, rather than shouts, about a friendship dissolving in slow motion — the specificity of a calendar date as a title makes the whole thing feel like a diary entry someone found and set to music. The lyric essence is embarrassment at your own persistence: still calling, still hoping, watching someone drift into a life you're not part of. Its context is the late-'90s Fat Wreck moment when skate-punk bands got old enough to write about regret instead of boredom, and it's the direct ancestor of half the emo that followed. It's a song for driving home alone at 1 a.m. after seeing an old friend and realizing you have nothing left to say to each other.