Review: The Band CAMINO — NeverAlways
Music
The Band CAMINO
NeverAlways
Atlantic Records
Street: 07.25.2025
The Band CAMINO = LANY x The 1975
It’s been a long time coming for fans of the Memphis alt-rock group The Band CAMINO. Two years, to be exact, since they last released an album. And it was well worth the wait.
In just 11 songs — and 35 minutes — The Band CAMINO once again reigns successful on NeverAlways. Their patent adrenaline-pumping, electro-rock songs are back, and they are reminiscent of the band’s debut album, tryhard.
Back in April, when the band announced “Infinity,” the album’s closer, they wrote on Instagram, “Starting over again from scratch is always this puzzle of staying true to your roots and simultaneously becoming something new.” It’s a puzzle they have meticulously cracked.
“I’m swimming in the desert trying to get my life together,” they promise in “Infinity.” I believe them, and I’m right there with them. It’s fair to say, though, that the band’s strength lies in their harder rock songs.
Take, for example, the album’s best track, “Baggy Jeans,” is a banger that captures the cruel nonchalance of getting your heart broken by someone who doesn’t deign to give the devastating act a second thought. You’re demoted to a task on their to-do list, right before the groceries. There’s a frustrating casualness to it all, where something can feel so meaningful to one person and next to nothing for another.
The listener makes sense of the situation at the same time the band does, as the drum line kicks in through the first verse before leading into a power-driven chorus that’s patent for the band. Using words like “guillotine” and “lackadaisically” with the song’s rhythm and pace make the flow perfect.
A few tracks later, “Stupid Questions” is another example of The Band CAMINO returning to their roots. To me, it’s an obvious continuation of “See Through.” In that iconic track from tryhard, the band laments how they “should’ve learned by now.”
“Stupid Questions” is the grown-up, calmer and clearer-headed sister to “See Through.” Here, the band once again asks the age-old question after a heartbreak, “Will I ever learn my lesson?” The way the track’s title is pronounced adds to the overall impact: “Stu-pid Ques-tions.”
The connection makes sense, especially when you look at the songwriting credits on both tracks. Seth Ennis contributed to both. In fact, songwriters overlap on all the harder rock songs, like Ben Berger and Garrison Burgess, of course alongside the band’s members.
NeverAlways also experiments with slower, softer songs. There’s “Limbo” and “What You Can’t Have,” which each have an almost acoustic feel to them, sonically and lyrically. They’re drenched in a different shade of vulnerability. The album even begins with “HasJustBegun,” a sweet song about recognizing that you’re falling in love.
They’re good, and sweet, but they feel a bit out of place on an album from this particular band. “What You Can’t Have” feels like it should be angrier. I want mad electric guitar, and the happy-go-lucky backtrack throws me off.
Still, the artistry deserves credit where it’s due. “Pieces” is the most thoughtful track I’ve heard about self-sabotaging, and needs to be slower to get that point across so successfully. “Hates Me Yet (222)” is dreamy, a song plucked straight from the early 2000s era of yearning singer-songwriters. Think The Fray or The Script. It’s a song you’d hear in the background of One Tree Hill. (And any song that makes a Dermot Kennedy reference is automatically a win in my book.)
The crux of NeverAlways is captured perfectly in the album’s cover, in which the band members have a harried run through a field, the image reflected above them like in a mirror or a crystal clear lake. It captures the adrenaline-rushing, sweet serotonin high one gets from listening to a track from The Band CAMINO.
This collection of songs (Volume 1, as fans have noted) moves their discography forward into a new frontier, but also reminds us of why we love The Band CAMINO. They can write songs about nonchalance, self-sabotage and remembering every little thing about a person — and they always hit, in one way or another.
The Band CAMINO helps listeners make sense of situations that are hard to put into words, or oftentimes don’t make sense at all. Whether it’s a fast or slow song, the heart is there. It’s always there. It’s never absent. —Palak Jayswal
Read more music reviews from SLUG:
Review: Chance the Rapper — STAR LINE
Review: Reneé Rapp — BITE ME
