Over ten years after their debut, 5 Seconds of Summer choose to relaunch their identity rather than iconise it.
“Everyone's A Star!” it doesn't celebrate a nostalgic return to pop-punk: it prefers to reactivate its nerve, filtering it through a hybrid aesthetic that mixes rave pulsations, alt-rock impulses and a generational irony that isn't afraid to face its own history.
The album plays with the idea of “new youth” without falling into complacent revivalism: retro synths, sinuous bass lines, distorted spoken-words and an early 2000s melodic taste build a sonic language that is more self-awareness than wink. The lyrics, imbued with an 80s post-punk sensibility internalized and made pop, address the deforming nature of parasocial relationships, the wear and tear of constant visibility and micro-contradictions of growing up under a spotlight that never goes off.
The album was created during 2024 and 2025 between Los Angeles and Nashville, written and produced in collaboration with names such as Jason, Julian Bunetta and John Ryan.
EVERYONE'S A STAR! it's the most 'our' sound we've ever had, and we're so proud to share it with everyone who's been part of this journey.”
The album works better when the band lets a humorous self-unmasking filter through: here 5SOS manage to metabolise the criticisms received over the years by transforming them into narrative material. Not everything is calibrated with the same precision – some production choices slide towards a predictability that dampens the risk – but the attempt to reformulate one's musical grammar is evident and convincing.
“Everyone's A Star!” it sounds like an impossible new debut: more mature, more disciplined, yet still animated by that adolescent urgency that the band now handles with more detachment and less impulsiveness.
Not a disruptive work, but a coherent, conscious work, and above all free from the anxiety of chasing external trends. It's an updated self-portrait of a group that has learned to take itself seriously without taking itself too seriously.
TO LISTEN NOW
SCORE: 6.75
THE VOTES OF OTHERS
Kerrang! – rating 8.00
The Clash – rating 8.00
Rolling Stone (USA) – rating 6.00
TRACKLIST
1. Everyone's A Star!
2. NOT OK
3. Telephone Busy
4. Boybands
5. No. 1 Obsession
6. I'm Scared I'll Never Sleep
7. isstillfeelthexamination
8. Ghosts
9. Sick of Myself
10. Evolve
11. The Rocks
12. Jawbreaker
DISCOGRAPHY
2014 – 5 Seconds of Summer
2015 – Sounds Good Feels Good
2018 – Youngblood
2020 – Calm
2022 – 5SOS5
2025 – Everyone's A Star!
