After speculation of the band splitting up, 5 Seconds of Summer, commonly known as 5SOS, reunited with the release of their sixth album, “EVERYONE’S A STAR!” Released on Friday, the four members — Luke Hemmings, Ashton Irwin, Calum Hood and Michael Clifford — came together to create new music for the first time since their last album, “5SOS5,” released in 2022.
The group brought back their pop-punk edge, using beats that sound like a combination of their older and most recent albums. The album excels at storytelling through song. They offer listeners songs that don’t claim to have life’s answers, but instead focus on finding glimmers of hope amid uncertainty.
The title track, “Everyone’s A Star!,” sets the tone of the album through a spoken message: “Crazy man, he went in the booth / Didn’t get any notes wrong / That’s the story we’ll tell.” This track sets the tone for the album, amplifying 5SOS’s narrative of their past and where they are now.
One standout song, “NOT OK,” was the lead single for the album and set the tone through synth, lyrical and sonic experimentation powered by electrifying guitar riffs. They advise to “(Bite, bite, bite) Bite the apple, baby” as they embrace this darker and hidden version of themselves.
The band takes a different angle from “NOT OK” in the song “Evolve” as they express an opposite viewpoint. Instead of embracing a different version of themselves, they explore wanting to cling to the younger parts of themselves without prohibiting themselves from growing or changing. This is explored in the song’s chorus, where they sing, “I know that I lost all, lost all control / I know that I got to, I got to evolve.”
The tone takes a solemn turn in songs like “I’m Scared I’ll Never Sleep Again” and “Ghost.” The shift in tone serves as a reminder that there are deeper struggles with change where the group explores the reality that love may not always be present. This absence can spark feelings of isolation and uncertainty as explored in “I’m Scared I’ll Never Sleep Again:” “Every bed is cold without your body in it / Everywhere I go, my skin is crawling / What if I can’t close my eyes without you in my head?”
As a band, they address their “boy band” title in their song “Boyband,” further explaining in an interview what that title meant to them.
“I think we’ve been fighting the stigma of boy band for a long time, and I think people got confused,” Clifford said in the band’s interview with Billboard News. “We want to be called a boy band.”
A chaotic mix of emotions, change and liveliness can be seen in 5SOS’s new album, which not only showcases the band’s talent but also highlights the individual talents. In dedication to each member, they compiled a feature of one bonus track on four separate CDs.
