Album Review: Cartel Choose Honesty Over Comfort on 'Learning How to Cope'
Photo credit: Jayleigh Harkai
This Friday, September 18, Georgia alt-rock band Cartel releases their fifth studio album Learning How to Cope via Field Day Records.
Fans have waited thirteen years for this full-length release. Frontman Will Pugh shared, “This music saved me. It helped me reconnect with empathy, with community and with the idea that everybody belongs. That ethos – honesty, openness, and taking care of your people – is what this record is built on. It feels different, but it still feels like Cartel.”
As summer comes to close, the band continues to bring the new music to the masses with a full schedule of festival appearances including Shaky Knees, Riot Fest, Four Chord Festival and Furnance Fest. After festival season comes to a close, the band will then join State Champs for a run of U.S. dates through the end of year.
The songwriting Learning How To Cope was inspired by both Pugh’s introspective moments confronting personal betrayls, as well as an outward view on global unrest fueld by broken systems that only feed the imbalance of power. “We're way past the point of being able to sit back and just provide the safe space that people can go and get away from everything,” Pugh says. “Society has been doing that long enough and not having difficult conversations – and that's just kind of over. If you're not going to say something now, when are you ever going to fucking say something?”
Learning How to Cope is Cartel’s fifth studio album, arriving September 18 via Field Day Records.
RØKKR had an early preview of the full album, so keep scrolling for our full track-by-track guide. “Supercalapocalypticexpialidocious" and “Everything’s Fine" were among our favorites picks!
There is still time to pre-order physical copies of the record HERE, including one version with an alternate cover!
Track Notes
All Singing, All Dancing – 3:45
Fans have waited over decade and the band wastes no time catching fans up to speed. The first track on the album opens straight into a riff. It's about losing yourself in the daily carousel of life so completely that you don't notice your own relationship ending right in front of you.
Oxy Moron – 4:06
No surprise this one went out as a single ahead of the album and landed on the setlist at Vans Warped Tour Montreal this summer. It opens with clean vocals over a fuzzy guitar, builds in that angsty pop-punk way, before dropping back into a sing along chorus before picking up the pace to close out the song.
Constants (feat. Dashboard Confessional) – 3:45
Cartel enlists none other than Dashboard Confessional for a feature on this track. Say that out loud and you might expect a slowed-down, super-emo ballad. The pace is sharp instead, and it's one of my favorites on the album.
Deadbeat Drag – 2:51
This one almost plays like a tribute to Hole's "Celebrity Skin." That unmistakable crunchy riff opens the track and lyrically it lands on the same page. Courtney Love was writing about a whole society rotting from the inside. Pugh appears to make it personal, aimed at one guy.
I want to love this track. As a kid of the 90s, I think that Hole’s riff is just too engrained for me to hear past it. Maybe the buzz around the similarities inspires younger listeners to explore the scene that paved the way for 2000s pop-punk. And if that was the intent of Cartel, I’d say that’s a win.
Shirts & Skins – 4:11
Another of the singles off this album, and I'm a big fan of the driving riffs on this one. Found myself headbanging to it. Lyrically it's a call to stop staying neutral, to stop just going along with the world as it is.
Think Twice – 2:28 & Inside Out – 3:05
When listening to an album front to back, those songs embedded mid-album can make or break the experience. Cartel keeps the tempo moving, injecting the right amount of energy to carry the listener through the second half of the album.
Give Or Take – 3:59
What I appreciate about this track is that after two beat-heavy songs, they switch things up at various points throughout this one.
The last 30 seconds of this song (not included in the music video) is a voice-over from a Ministry of Truth & Compliance interrupting the broadcast, which then tunes out into a commercial-sounding advertisement that leads into the next track. Almost like you're sitting at the radio dial, turning between stations.
Damn, that makes me sound old. Do these young whippersnappers even know what a radio dial is?
Supercalapocalypticexpialidocious – 3:52
Marking this one down as a favorite off the album. It's a banger and should be a favorite in the pits. Smart lyric writing, excellent work on the drums, a few sing-alongs in there. It just slaps. (Yes, that's my attempt at redeeming the whippersnapper comment.)
Sry Not Sry – 3:26
This song reaffirms how I feel about the album overall. The strongest moments come when the band leans into heavier alternative rock and leaves the cookie-cutter pop-punk formula behind.
Disarmed – 3:35
Big fan of the guitar tones throughout this song. This late in the album, the change in sound shows some maturity in musicianship and gives you a point of reflection heading into the final track.
Everything’s Fine – 4:51
The final track is strong and the last of my favorites here. It hangs around for nearly five minutes, the longest song on the record. The shift in sound and feel from the prior eleven tracks leaves you hopeful about what comes next for Cartel. The slow, fading outro gives you a moment to sit with the whole message of the album.
