Sometimes you listen to an album for the first time and only a fewtracks in you can tell that there is something special about it.  Such is the case for Combat’s excellent new album, Stay Golden.  By the end of an exhilarating first listen, it is apparent that Stay Golden is indeed a special album and one that will no doubt be revered by punk and emo fans alike.  

The brief piano-driven intro track gives way to the title track which is on the short list of best songs of 2024.  With a runtime of slightly under two minutes, this song wastes no time in drilling itself into the listener’s head.  This song is fast and catchy and reminiscent of Merciera Save Face with vocals at times akin to Gerard Way.  (As a brief aside, Save Face’s 2021 album Another Kill for the Highlight Reel is the closest thing we are getting to a new My Chemical Romance album at this point).  This is such a fun song and like many of the songs on this album Combat throws punk, emo, and ska into a blender with incredible results.  The chorus of “brokenhearted kids don’t party/like their parents did in the 90s/I don’t think this is gonna work but/motherfuck this shit still hurts” is unforgettable and this song is going to win Combat a lot of new fans.

Faith is another fast, catchy song and the highlight is the introspective lyrics.  “I don’t want to do this Combat shit anymore, but people seem to like this last record” and “I just want to be one of the guys totally stoked and out of my mind” go hand in hand as songwriter and bandleader Holden Wolf appears to be weighing the pros and cons of being in a band versus living a more “normal” life.  The last record that he refers to is 2022’s Text Me When You Get Back which Combat recorded in a matter of hours and mixed on their own.  Stay Golden, however, is produced by Ryland Heagy of Origami Angel who is sure to be in demand after people hear this album.

The next several tracks on Stay Golden fly by with most of the runtimes ranging from a minute to a minute and a half.  Put Me In, Coach is a highlight with the lyrics “am I the person that you wanted me to be? Do I tend to all your needs?  Do I make you lots of money?”This album is chock-full of memorable lyrics, and everyone will leave this album with different lines that get stuck in their head and randomly pop up from time to time.

Weird Ending Explained, Pt. 1 is a vastly different song than anything prior to it, in no small part because it is eight minutes long.  This song is composed of several different “suites” and is extremely ambitious.  The song starts out very fast and transitions to a slower section about two minutes in, which is one of the highlights of the album.  The lyrics in the bridge “better stay golden so you don’t get caught standing out of place/everybody’s punk until someone has something to say” and the vocals toward the end that evoke those of Bren Lukens (Modern Baseball) and Jake Ewald (Modern Baseball and Slaughter Beach, Dog) are major highlights.  

There are a couple of songs on Stay Golden that pretty successfully use repetition to hammer the point home.  One such example is Merrow Lanes which repeats the line “you’re gonna have to do better” for about forty seconds.  Like it or not, this song will stay with you long after it ends.

Combat has shown plenty of times throughout the first eleven tracks on Stay Golden that they are far from a one-trick pony, but the twelfth track, Compound Sentences, still continues to surprise with it being the slowest song on the album and having a country western feel throughout.  The lyrics shine in this song too with the line “there’s no point in going backwards/what’s passed is in the past” which is wisdom we could all benefit by meditating on from time to time.  “These days I got way too much shit to do and records to ship out”reference one of the other hats that Wolf wears – that of a record label runner.

Perhaps the single track that listeners will gravitate to the most is the penultimate track, Epic Season Finale.  The song itself sounds awesome, but as is the case with much of the album, it is the lyrics that people will latch onto.  “Oh my god I feel like everyone I know is getting good jobs and stable homes where everything’s made of gold/well here I am still playing shows eating out every night just cheap tacos.”  Comparing oneself to others is nothing new but is certainly more prevalent in the age of social media (which is another topic for another day) and oftentimes lead to feelings of inadequacy and melancholy.  “Holy shit I feel like quitting everything, school, job and music industry isn’t made out for me.”  This theme of quitting everything is relatable to us all and it is this relatable songwriting thatwill propel Combat to new heights.

Stay Golden closes with its longest song, Weird Ending Explained, Pt. 2 which at nine minutes in length is structured like Pt. 1 with several “suites” making up the song.  There are callbacks to some of the previous songs on the album including the title track and Compound Sentences, and more “Easter Eggs” are sure to be discovered upon repeated listens.  This song works well as the closer and contains somepiano at the end which bookends the album nicely.

What Combat has created here is something that most bands can only hope to achieve once in their career if the stars align.  That Holden Wolf has accomplished this on just the second Combat album and at (massively buried lede) 20 years in age is an incredible feat.  Without hyperbole, this is an album that will be looked on in the next five to ten years as an important and influential record.  Get a good seat on the Combat bandwagon now because it is about to get crowded.

Rating: 9.1/10

Release Date: August 16, 2024

Tracklisting:

1) Intro

2) Stay Golden

3) Faith

4) Put Me In, Coach

5) Good News

6) Full Speed Ahead

7) Cool For A While

8) Weird Ending Explained, Pt. 1

9) Stay Golden (Reprise)

10) Happy Again

11) Merrow Lanes

12) Compound Sentences

13) Epic Season Finale

14) Weird Ending Explained, Pt. 2

Reviewed by Andrew Bachna