You Can’t Plan For This by Cold Wrecks Review

Written by: Liam m Hennessey

Pop punk as an aesthetic is imbued within itself an appreciation for life and all its chaos. Cold Wrecks' newest track You Can’t Plan for This is an emphatic embrace of this principle. Launched in promotion of their newest record to be released August 7, the eponymous single offers listeners a window into the upcoming LP. 

Light, breezy, and sung with a tongue in cheek snarky sarcasm, the single boasts a sound that reflects the band's resiliency in spite of life’s abrasive unpredictability. As is typical for pop punk, everything sounds well polished and placed in the mix. The song structure is also true to form for the sub-genre, delivering catchy hook after catchy hook throughout the whole song. 

The playfully bleak tone of the single isn’t merely due to the performances. The lyrics do most of the heavy lifting there, as it’s all about life’s many unintended consequences. They may be sarcastic and snarky, but the tone of the lyrics doesn’t feel bitter or bleak in spite of their pessimistic nature. The already empathetic track has a few especially relatable phrases such as, “It’s expensive and I’m starting to freak out again.” 

In what could only be poetic irony, this song emphasizes that life is largely unpredictable and that most of the time people encounter events they didn’t even think about as an obstacle. Setbacks are inevitable in life, and people have to learn to roll with the punches. 

You Can’t Plan For This is a fantastic anthem with this mantra. The track’s depth offers the listener a more reflective rendition of pop punk, all without sacrificing the brevity it’s known for. The single might be called You Can’t Plan For This, but what people can plan for is this single getting stuck in their head.