Back in March, Awsten Knight announced that Waterparks‘ third full-length album, that fans believed work on was well underway, had been binned.

…or more accurately deleted. But fans fear not for what has replaced it is a wonderful if not slightly eccentric, very green coloured album titled Fandom. Of course, we’ve been drenched in green from Knight’s hair to an entire aesthetic for the coming of this new Fandom era.

This album is full of catchy songs with awesome hooks and dance your ass off choruses. The genre of songs seems to wander all over the place throughout the album, there’s some pop, some hip-hop, a ballad of course and even some techno thrown in. It’s all over the place vibe is actually truly brilliant giving an experimental sound and an interesting listen across all 15 tracks.

Fandom is more than just a title, it’s more than just a passing theme, it’s the album’s concept in its entirety. Knight talks or rather sings incessantly about the concept of fame and fandom. From songs about how we (the audience) consume his art to ones about how our perception of him is a hard one to live up to. For example, on the song ‘I miss having sex but at least I don’t want to die anymore’ he makes his distaste of fame clear: “I’m sick of all this, how’d you get your band name? / Is that your real first name? / Can you text? / And can you follow back ’cause it’s my birthday?”

The album is a lot of fun and it is clearly written to amuse as well as entertain, a lot of people find Knight hilarious as he cap locks his way through Twitter posts and answers questions on his advice column in Rocksound. He’s just as funny on this album. Let us not forget the other two blokes that make up this Texas trio though, the brilliance of this album goes beyond just lyrical content and into musical versatility.

You should definitely give the album a listen and then play it over and over again until it’s clever not so subtle lyrical undertones set in. Do not however take the album too seriously, unless you are the sort to take yourself seriously but then you’re probably not Waterparks target audience. Unlike what you may have heard this is not one just for kids, it’s for us grown-ups too.