After the release of AJR’s two legendary albums, Living Room (2015) and The Click (2017), the band of three brothers is back and better than ever with their brand new album entitled Neotheater, which came out April 25. The brothers already filled their fans with anticipation with a single released Jan. 29, titled “100 Bad Days.”

The band’s name itself stands for the first names of each of the brothers (Adam, Jack and Ryan), and they make music with a few simple instruments: the guitar, the bass, the ukulele, the piano and of course, their own voices. With their newly released album, they have intentions of blowing away their fans by “set[ing] the bar really high” and making the world tour “more, bigger, and crazier,” as said by bassist Adam Met in an interview with Substream Magazine.

They certainly have not disappointed with this album. After hits such as “Weak,” “I’m Not Famous” and “Drama” from their 2017 album, Neotheater delivers a wide range of songs all with different inspirations intended to grab the attention of their audience. For example, in that same Substream Magazine interview, Jack and Ryan Met say that one of the songs, entitled “Don’t Throw Out My Legos, is a song about not wanting to leave childhood behind when moving out of their parents’ house.“Birthday Party” is based off the incredibly unique perspective of a baby just having been born and is talking about how, “[t]his hospital’s got lots of crying kids/A minute ago, I did not exist/It’s nice to finally meet my relatives…”

Though all the songs have meaningful messages, some are more heartfelt than others. The best example is the tear-jerking and calming song, “Dear Winter,” in which Jack Met sings to his future child these lines: “Dear Winter/I’m looking for your mom/I gotta find a girl that doesn’t mind that I’m inside my head a lot/Winter, it won’t be too long/First, I just gotta find your mom.”

When it comes to the music videos of Neotheater’s songs, there’s a wide range of ideas. Of course, barely any of the videos for the songs are released, since the album is fairly new, but some videos for the songs include the one for “Dear Winter,” which features Jack alone on a canoe in a river with a guitar and the one for “100 Bad Days,” which is a more interesting video concept with special — and truthfully initially a bit scary — effects.

AJR has been closely compared to solo artist Jon Bellion in the past with echoey back-up vocals, intense beat drops and a definite whimsical element to their styles. As a fan of AJR since 2016, I fell in love the creativity of their new album as well as the harmonies that were so strangely put together but worked so well at the same time. AJR is a unique and rising band that differs in a way that, in my opinion, can barely be compared to most of today’s popular music.