Chicago’s Footballhead follow-up their debut album with a clean, hard-hitting mini-album, ‘Before I Die.’

Stream: ‘Before I Die’ – Footballhead

**Just five months after their excellent debut record, Chicago’s Footballhead have returned with a mini-album Before I Die.**

On the new release, the five-piece band power through depression, loss, and young adult confusion, all while delivering it with some of the catchiest alt-rock tunes that the Tiny Engines roster can offer.

Throughout the album, the band doesn’t shy away from hook-driven clean vocals, and swelling power chords. Vocalist Ryan Nolen shines through on so many of the tracks with a delightful crispness. While the band adapts with twinkly riffs on slower songs like the title track or groovy post-emo on a track like “Crushing Me,” his vocals round out the mix nicely with a certain clean quality that straddles the line between pop-punk and indie rock.

Before I Die - Footballhead — Before I Die – Footballhead

Coming not long after their debut album, Before I Die does an excellent job of showing the band’s range. While pop-punk seems to be the best umbrella term for the group, tunes like “Your Ghost” do an excellent job fluctuating between intense hardcore riffs to sparkling arpeggios. The soft-loud range is perhaps best shown off on the album’s standout track “All for What?” After repeating the song’s refrain of “Why so weary now?” a few times, Nolen lets out a primal yell, as the guitars swell behind him. It’s pummeling, and it feels more akin to a Terror song than a Mayday Parade track.

Despite having a title which invokes mortality, Before I Die is really ultimately a record about searching for your place in the world. Nolen makes this mission statement known in the opening song “My Direction.” Just as the band tries on different musical hats throughout the process, the search and sound of the record is perhaps best summed up in the closing track “In Motion.” Mixing acoustic verses with swelling mid-tempo hard rock choruses, Nolen sings about putting his faith in himself through the process.

Give me reason to believe it’s worth completion
I’m all lost within its meaning
Looks that I can misconstrue
Will it get better?
All that I wonder
Stress I put myself under
Make it familiar
Sleep it all off, so I’m sane

<a href="https://footballheadchi.bandcamp.com/album/before-i-die">Before I Die by FOOTBALLHEAD</a>

In the short time since the release of Overthinking Everything, Footballhead also sound much cleaner and tighter on the mini-album, which only clocks in at 8 minutes shorter than their debut full-length.

Had these songs been released 15 or 20 years earlier, there’s a strong possibility that they’d go down as scene classics. Considering how quickly the band released Before I Die following their debut full-length, it seems exciting to see what their next step will be.

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