Album Review :: State Champs "STATE CHAMPS"

State Champs // State Champs
Pure Noise Records :: Nov. 8 2024
review by Eric Riley

Two and a half years after the release of their fourth album Kings of the New Age, Albany’s State Champs are back with self-titled album number five, ready to defend their throne.

If there was any indicator about the current state of Champs’ mindset, lead single “Silver Cloud” shows their hand early on. Kicking off the chorus, frontman Derek DiScanio questions “So can we get back to basics somehow?” And the answer is a succinct and swift yes.

A roadmap of where they exist and breadcrumbs of where they’ve come from, there’s a balance between past and present throughout these dozen tracks. Opener “The Constant” explores bad deals and broken trust, while “Sobering” is a clear-eyed look forward.
Gone are the backing strings of Kings’ “Eventually” or the multiple features that “Everybody But You” or “Half Empty,” among others, brought, but even with a leaner and lighter workload than its predecessor, State Champs is still just as much of a statement.

Less about necessarily trimming the fat and more so sharpening their craft, there’s an aura of no more bullshit that seeps out of the album. DiScanio’s writing, which has always been clever and loaded with a certain level of wittiness and charm, is still on-point, but relies less on wordplay and instead cuts directly to the point. Production-wise, the tracks are clean and razor-sharp, but still manage to feel like there’s still an early 2000’s allure to them. There’s a strength to the simplicity at points here; it’s the sophomore Count The Stars album we never got, two decades in the making.

That’s not to say State Champs is just some basic cookie-cutter paint-by-numbers.
There are highlights on here that could rival any other song within their catalog, and chances taken that pay off in a big way.

“Light Blue” takes an early lead as the album’s high water mark – a cruising, coastal look back at memories you can’t fully wash away. Paired with “I Still Want To” later, which professes “Now I can try to face it / But when we’re face to face it changes / If there ain’t nothin for us to talk through / Then why do I feel like I wanna call you now? / It’s déjà vu / I know I said I wouldn’t but I still want to,” they’re leaving it all on the table.

Arguably the biggest swing and biggest diversion from their typical body of work, the halfway point “Hell Of It” plays like a continuation of Mitchell Tenpenny’s assist on Kings of the New Age’s “Act Like That” – the country star helped out with a pop-punk song, so the pop-punk band took a shot at country. I should say: it’s not a country song. But it’s not not a country song; talking about pulling all-nighters, drinking cheap wine, driving down the back roads – it’s not radio-country, but it sure does have all the ingredients. Drop his voice an octave or two lower and sing it from the side of your mouth and you’d hear this one blaring from raised pickup-trucks all summer long.
And you now what? I’ll be damned if they didn’t knock this thing out of the park (whether they were going for that or not). A risk you love to see a band take five albums into their career, and a risk you love to see pay off.

While “Hell Of It” is a gamble that cashed, others like “Just A Dream” and “I Still Want To” are Champs’ bread and butter – fast, fun, and frantic.
And though I had mentioned that there weren’t as many add-ons with the self-titled album, that doesn’t mean they’re completely gone. On “Save Face Story,” with some help from Slope, the band gives us what I equated to “Sundress” 2.0, a loud, off-the-wall pop-punk breakdown. A bit jarring at first, admittedly, but ends up fitting really well after only a listen or two.

Closing with “Golden Years,” the album sprints to the finish line. The best vocals on the record, not only from DiScanio but also with a booming back-and-forth with Graham, it tries to find the middle ground between recognizing the positives you’ve experienced without holding yourself in the past. It’s okay to see things with rose-coloured glasses, as long as it doesn’t turn out to be a red light keeping you in place:

“Maybe the good things have to change / That doesn’t mean that they go away. / Facing what’s up ahead / I hope I never forget me. / How do I find a way to say that maybe the golden years they mean something a bit different these days? / ‘Cause now it takes everything in me / putting the past up on a shelf / and falling in love with something else.”

State Champs runs the risk of feeling like a step backwards compared to Kings of the New Age. I think there will be some who hear this and hear a safe record. However, I would have to strongly disagree. Five albums in, with all of the doubts and dilemmas and pains and problems and love and loyalty that bursts through with each of the tracks here, this is State Champs at their truest, most honest, and most vulnerable. Confidently unsure, unapologetically authentic, throwing caution to the wind while still cautiously optimistic, it’s okay to not know every answer to every question because it’ll be tackled head-on and handled together.

The four-piece are still Kings of their territory, and this record shows everyone who they are.
A self-titled record was a perfect choice for this stage of their career because it’s a perfect summary of their career; State Champs is who State Champs are.

Score: 4/5

State Champs tracklist:

1. The Constant
2. Silver Cloud
3. Clueless
4. Light Blue
5. Too Late To Say
6. Hell Of It
7. Sobering
8. Tight Grip
9. I Still Want To
10. Just a Dream
11. Save Face Story
12. Golden Years