After four years of relative quiet, The Jukebox Romantics are back with This One Looks Cool — a ten-track record that feels like a full-circle moment for a band that’s been through its share of growth and redefinition.
Recorded and produced by John Naclerio at Nada Recording Studio in Montgomery, New York, the album captures the band’s familiar mix of high-energy punk hooks and introspective storytelling, but with a tighter focus and a tone shaped by years of touring, transition, and lived experience.
The Jukebox Romantics are in-your-face, fun, heartfelt punk rock & roll in the vein of bands like The Bouncing Souls, blink-182, and Alkaline Trio. Over the past 15 years, they have taken their talked-about live show from coast to coast, including multiple appearances at Gainesville’s Fest, Vans Warped Tour, Pouzza Fest, Hamburg’s Booze Cruise, SXSW, and more. Since their debut album in 2009, the band has made a name for themselves by touring endlessly with ferociously fun, energetic live shows. By conveying heart and leaving their sweat and souls out on stage at every show, they remind audiences to have fun, enjoy life, and never grow up.
Their new record was created as a four-piece, marking a new chapter for the New York band. Since restructuring in 2020, they’ve rebuilt their sound around shared vocals, melodic drive, and sharper arrangements, carrying the spirit that’s taken them from Gainesville’s Fest to Hamburg’s Booze Cruise and countless shows across the U.S., U.K., and Europe. “We’ve always been about heart and connection,” the band said when reflecting on the record’s themes. “This one just feels like us — older maybe, but still chasing that same spark.”
After regrouping post-lockdown in 2020, the band finished the EP they had started pre-pandemic, Fires Forming, which was originally meant to be a full-length. With the addition of A.J. Chiarella and James Macdonald, the lineup found new creative energy, exchanging ideas and shaping what would become This One Looks Cool, their fifth studio LP. After three years of writing and performing together, they returned to Nada Recording with John Naclerio — described by the band as “the unofficial other member of The Jukebox Romantics,” someone who “just gets what we are trying to do.”
Between their last release in 2021 and now, life happened — friendships ended and began, there was parenthood, marriage, new jobs, loss. That real-life chaos and emotion found its way into the new songs, making this their most personal and vulnerable record to date — and, with A.J. and James on board, also their most technically refined. The band describes the two as bringing “talent, positivity, and energy” that gave The Jukebox Romantics “a shot in the arm creatively.”
As for the title, This One Looks Cool comes from something Norm’s son, Hudson, said while looking at a rock — a reminder that sometimes meaning comes from the simplest things in life.
Released via Sell The Heart Records in the U.S. and Engineer Records in the U.K., “This One Looks Cool” arrives on October 17, 2025, available on 12″ vinyl, CD, and digital formats.
The band describes the record as “fun, heartfelt punk rock and roll,” but beneath that simplicity lies an album that deals in movement — both literal and emotional — and the spaces between letting go and holding on.
Full track-by-track commentary from the band follows below.
“Coffee, Cigarettes & Damp Church Basements”
“I wrote this song as more of a metamorphosis of the mind. On the surface, it seems like someone dealing with sobriety. When I was writing this 2 very close friends were battling demons with substances. Being in a relationship with someone 20+ years sober I guess some of their ethos rubbed off on me. There are lots of terms in the songs that are AA/NA things that I’ve never heard of. It just happened that way. Also a lot of punk shows happen in damp church basements so maybe its all about punk shows? It’s whatever you want it to be really. New beginnings and all that” -Terry
“Divey League Fools”
You ever spend your twenties busting your ass at work and then sitting around a bar with a close friend talking about how you could make your life better but you never do? This song is talking about just that. I kinda wrote it as a timeless conversation of loss and refusal to accept change while watching the world go by and feeling powerless to do anything about it. A way to get the negativity out, and at least scream about something. – James
“Packing Up My Knives”
A friend of ours was making a short indie horror-comedy film about cannibals. He commissioned this song for the film with the notes “Make it sound like JBR/MISFITS/ALKALINE TRIO. Easy enough! We wrote and recorded it in 2 weeks. It’s rad. This song is collectively one of our favorites ever in the history of the band. If it wasn’t for this silly little movie, this banger wouldn’t exist. We are forever grateful for Allen and his team @ MEAT LOVERS for asking us to be part of their film. It also has won an award at an Utah film festival for best original song for a movie. We are still waiting for them to send the trophy. Tick toc….tick toc… Terry
“Honolulu Sun”
This song was almost called “Indiana Jones and The Temple of Bob Gibson.” In October of 2024, the world lost one of its shining lights. Bob was our friend who we met on tour to SXSW in 2010. We become best buds via music and outside music. He loved inside jokes, ninja turtles, partying, music, his dogs, disney, baseball and people. He was a royal pain in the ass. And royal human. If you got heart, let me see you Prove It. Oh, why is it called Honolulu Sun. It’s a soap Bob hoarded every spring from bath and bodyworks. They say smell is the sense that ties us to memories. Whenever I smell Honolulu Sun, I think of all our good times. -Terry
“March 24, 1984”
I am obsessed with movies. This is a coming of age song about coming of age movies. Teen movies of the 80s and 90s. John Hughes, Cameron Crowe etc.-Terry
“Goodnight, Future Boy!”
More and more, less and less people are having kids. It’s a scary fucken world out there. In the music world, it’s even more common for many of us artists and dreamers, to opt out of having children to pursue art or because the world is shit. After having my first child, a girl, I was down for only having one kid.I wanted a girl. Seemed easier. I grew up with all women. I don’t consider myself a manly man. But we had more sex. Which means more kid…and this time is was a boy. Boys become men. Men more so than women become rapists, serial killers, tyrants…you get it. That was my fear. So i wrote this song as a letter to my unborn son. With all the fears of what could happen plus all the hope and positivity I could shine through in the terror of impending fatherhood to a son in 2020’s America. Since writing this, I have had a vasectomy. Do it.-Terry
“She’s On The Run”
The classic story of small town girl heads out West to chase her dream, trying to run from her problems. Usually we are a pretty positive band. This song is a little tongue and cheek.
“Ambivelance”
Your greatest enemy can be yourself. The inability to stick to a plan or a decision will lead to regret, stagnation, and worst of all a song about how you could have been better but never made the necessary change. To get to the other side of a field of problems, sometimes, you just need to keep your head up, start walking, and not worry about all the possibilities other paths can lead to. -James
“Space Buds”
You ever been in a relationship that kinda just fizzled out? You basically become roomates who were once lovers, growing a relationship and suddenly, you are just 2 different people occupying the same space. No fights, No Drama. Just vast, cold nothingness. – Terry
“The Walk To Heartwood”
For over 20 years, a small festival in Gainesville, Florida has morphed into an Utopia of punk rock and roll for all its followers and sub genres. What started off as a joke about how long the walk from one stage was to another, and how we should write a song about that 10 minute walk and make the song itself 10 minutes, turned into something a little more serious. A hate and love letter to what is the current state of the punk scene. The musical and lyrical references are a plenty. Keep up, it’s a fast new yorker walk. – Terry
The Jukebox Romantics would like to thank these amazing people for helping make this release possible:
Bob Gibson (RIP Brother), John Naclerio, Maggie Gaughran, Lindsay Hughes, Casey Hagan (for dealing with us making noise in the basement writing this thing) , Katherine Allacco, Bobby Edge, Seth Dellon, Mike Stratton, Joe Jacobs, Chris Schultz, Eliot Gellar. Thank you to our children and the people who took care of them when we were writing & recording this album. Andy Pohl at Sell The Heart Records, David Gamage at Engineer Records, Sam Stauff at Mercy University, Rat House Drums, Hodge Podge Studios. John Hughes, Cameron Crowe, Sam Hoyos, Bob Gayle, Robert Zemekids, THE FEST, thank you to anyone who has ever come to a JBR show. Thank you for dancing, singing, and supporting us throughout the years. Much love and respect.
