Review: Almost Always Takes The Scenic Route and Makes It Last

Frontman Kristopher Evans belts out the first lyric to “Run River,” the opening track off The Scenic Route, the debut EP of Chicago’s newest emo-laden pop punk outfit Almost Always, as someone stuck somewhere between a cry for help and a last resort. A singular guitar track roars with the utmost urgency under his soaring vocals as he cries out, “Satellite, come back around / There is something I'm afraid to say out loud”, all before the rest of the band reveal themselves and the EP kicks into full driving gear with a magnificent howl. There is a kinetic energy to “Run River” that is nothing short of palpable, radiating an emotional fury that does not once calm down or cease for almost three minutes. You could honestly say the same about The Scenic Route at large, and I don’t think you’d get a lot of pushback, at least not from me. Having just released their debut EP in November 2025, Almost Always is a band I wanted to take the time to shout out here, rather late than never, because this EP deserves to be heard and recognized for the absolute showstopper that it is. There are six songs on here totaling a grand runtime of just over 21 minutes, and each minute steams with a passionate rage that you can’t help but side with.

From the opening moments of “Run River”, I’m immediately noticing how high Evan’s vocals soar and how crushing Drue Backhaus’ drums sound. The guitar tones coming from Jay Jancetic and Andy Wood collectively amount to nothing short of cleanly distorted perfection, all while Connor Schweisberger’s bass acts as a well-oiled, locked-down musical survival compass, assuring the band that there is no path too fraught they’d be at risk straying from. This is a band that sounds like they’ve been playing together for years, and maybe that is the case, but there is such a strong chemistry apparent from the opening track alone that you can’t help but be impressed by how solid this band sounds at the earliest stage in their career.

The title track, which succeeds the opener, might be my favorite track off the album as a whole, edging out “Run River” only by the skin of its teeth. Its opening guitar harmonics sound off like sirens in the cold of the night while the drums and bass pound away like a call to arms for the listener. The first verse starts, and there’s already this visceral anxiety to the song that wakes you up and gets you energized in the best way. The chorus to this song is unbeatable, and as Evans sings out the final lyric, “We took the scenic route and we knew it wouldn’t last”, I get flashes of The Wonder Years thinking that Evans went to the Dan Campbell school for gifted wailers. Outside of a few moments here and there throughout the rest of the record, I think “The Scenic Route” is the heaviest song through and through, and the way Backhaus’ drumming accentuates each ten-pound power chord may not be the only reason why, but it sure is a damn good one.

“Feel & Fade” comes out swinging, not unlike your favorite Tigers Jaw song, and never once lets up, even through its varying dynamic push-and-pulls. It’s not hard to see how much emotion is dripping off the walls of this song as Evans shouts, “What you did never meant anything to me / I wished you were someone else”, right before the band descends into a most violent end with a riff that will release you to your uncontrollable baser instincts. Guitarist and backing vocalist Jay Jancetic is a former member of Chicago metalcore icons Harm’s Way, who played with them for at least their first three albums, and so I’m not left with too many questions surrounding who may have written this juggernaut of a riff. When drummer Drue Backhaus finally settles into that riff with an open hi-hat groove, it’s over for me.

The great thing about this EP is that it’s really quite great all the way through, and “Phantom Limb” is a great halfway highlight. It’s got a bit more of a laid-back tempo, but it may be the hookiest song on the whole release. There is some truly impressive rhythm work on display in this song around the 1:30 mark, and the chorus is one big fat earworm I can’t help but come back to repeatedly. There may not be this aggressive urgency to the song that the first three songs have, but “Phantom Limb” holds its own as the bona fide radio hit of the EP, and those songs are damn hard to pull off right, but Almost Always are not amateurs here.

Even though not many people know of this EP, or band for that matter, and the entire project is underrated in the truest sense of the word, I believe “Sugar” to be the most underrated and undervalued song off The Scenic Route. It’s a song that, at least for me, took a while to make sense of, but when it finally all clicked, it’s a song I see myself coming back to more than most other songs here. The chorus is pure bliss, and the riffs towards the back half of the song really drive forward my thinking here that “Sugar” is the unsung hero of The Scenic Route, and I implore anyone listening to this EP to keep their eyes and ears tuned to this track.

Like I always say, every release has to have a least favorite song, and “Tides” is that for me. To me, this song is just the least interesting musically and lyrically. It has the fewest hooks, the verses are vocally paced a bit awkwardly, and overall just falls flat in ways that none of the other songs do. I will say, however, the way Evans sings “The wreck is behind us now” during the chorus and the instrumental that follows right after sounds absolutely killer. How the song concludes itself after the second chorus is also really cool, but still, on an overall level, the song just doesn’t really do it for me. It’s still, in my opinion, a good song that is rather unfairly surrounded by some future emo-clad pop-punk classics. Don’t worry, they’ll be chanting “Justice for ‘Tides’!” out in the streets in no time.