Review: Fat Heaven – “Trash Life”

Sell the Heart – 24 Feb 2023

Stepping up to a bigger label, Fat Heaven shows the same retro pop-punk style that made their debut album so great.

For a few years now I’ve had a short list of bands that I like to refer to as “the best band that nobody’s talking about.” That list is almost empty now as most of the bands on it are finally starting to get the credit they deserve, which simply proves that I’m frequently right about these things. (Half joking.) Fat Heaven is the latest band to graduate off my list, as their sophomore album Trash Life is on Sell the Heart Records, which is still an independent label but a bit bigger than Mirror Universe Tapes, who put out their first album Tough Luck.

I’ve always found Fat Heaven to be a refreshing throwback to the ‘90s pop-punk styles associated with the now-defunct Lookout Records—who produced such punk greats as Green Day, Operation Ivy, and Pansy Division—but with a more modern sensibility to their lyrics. As they step up to a new label, they show no signs of losing that vitality, that sense of making the old new again, that they had on their first album.

“Quarter Life Crisis” opens the album with some really gorgeous hooks and melodies that are this band’s trademark. Then “I Am Trash” rips in with a furious hardcore drumbeat that drives an otherwise pop-punk song  with some really smart lyrics about the struggles of developing self-esteem. Then comes “Doomsday” with its wistful tune that seems to mourn for the human race in advance of the end of the world. It’s both a political warning and a sentimental song about the lost potential of humanity that could be wiped out at any moment by nuclear war or some other man-made disaster. Thankfully, that gives way to the much less depressing song “Miracle” where vocalist Travis Yablon puts on an impressive performance of some mile-a-minute lyrics.

“Crybaby” has easily the most utterly infectious hook on the whole album with lyrics that just seem to glide along with ease.  “Never Needed You” then follows with a deep and burning bitterness that shines through in the vocal performance. “Suburban Nightmare” is a bleak song, in contrast to the upbeat tone of the song, which is just something I always love to see from pop-punk bands. Closing track “Narc” doesn’t actually have a ton of lyrics to it and is kind of just built on the repetition of the very simple phrase “I won’t,” but after nine tracks of some really smart and emotionally impactful lyrics, I think they’re entitled to make their last song a sort of simple victory lap after a job well done.

The 10-track, 22-minute album contains all four songs off of their 2018 EP Crybaby, which was also excellent, but it does mean that it’s only six new tracks. So basically my biggest complaint about this album comes from the fact that I would have loved to hear more new material. But if this is your first introduction to the band, then you’ll probably be really happy to hear the already strong EP combined with the new tracks to make an LP that’s short but has no filler.