Their first record after a two-year hiatus,
When You’re Through Thinking, Say Yes finds
Yellowcard returning to the pop-punk landscape without missing a beat. With a sound that’s oddly sweeping for the genre, it feels at times as if the band owes more to post-rock than post-hardcore, with songs like “Be the Young” showing strains of the loneliness evoked by
Explosions in the Sky. This kind of contemplative sound is what really helps
Yellowcard stand out from the pack, giving them an extra tool to help coax emotion out of the listener without relying purely on saccharine sentimentality or sappiness. As with their last album, the prominence of the violin continues to diminish, but what the strings lack in ubiquity they make up for in impact, making an impression when they appear rather than just fading into the background. This kind of refinement of their sound paints a picture of an older and wiser
Yellowcard whose members are confident enough in their abilities that they can step away from the gimmick that initially set them apart from the pack and let their songwriting do the talking, and makes
When You’re Through Thinking, Say Yes an album that won’t disappoint anyone who has stuck with the band for the past decade. ~ Gregory Heaney