Some things don’t end the way we need them to. Some questions never get answered. Some goodbyes never get said. Finding Closure, the latest EP from New Jersey’s All Systems Go, is about the moments that refuse to resolve—four songs searching for explanations that will never come.
Produced by Gary Cioni (Crime in Stereo, Hot Mulligan) and mastered by Mike Kalajian (New Found Glory, Senses Fail), it leans into a punchy, hook-heavy sound, pulling pop punk closer to rock, but with an emotional core that cuts deeper than nostalgia.
The record moves through different shades of acceptance. There’s the belief that good choices lead to good outcomes. The realization that words don’t always mean what we think they do. The weight of feeling lost, and the attempt to rewrite an identity.
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And at its heaviest point, a letter to someone who isn’t there to read it. At the center of it all is loss—not just of people, but of certainty, of control, of the ability to fix what’s already gone.
The band doesn’t sugarcoat it. They’ve lived through it, and the songs reflect that reality. The record closes on Survivor’s Guilt, written in the wake of bassist Dean Mason’s passing in 2023. “We’ll never get true closure,” says Matt. “So acceptance is the best answer we can have.” That’s the core of the record. Not every story gets an ending. Sometimes all you can do is carry it forward.
Check out the full track by track commentary below.
Words by guitarist and vocalist Matt Pezza:
“Hey, Crabman!”, a reference to the show My Name is Earl, is a song that focuses on taking any situation in life and responding to it in the best way possible. The main premise of the actual TV show has the main character, Earl, completing a list of good deeds to make up for everyone he wronged in his life. Devin took this concept and put it to music.
Being a good person will lead to good karma, and following the concept of the show, will ideally nullify the chance of any bad karma happening. As we grow older and near our 30’s, we’ve felt that approaching life this way ultimately leads to better peace of mind. This is the most positive song on the record, serving as the ideal opening track.
“Everything Going Well is a Bad Thing, Right?” aims to bring closure to a developing romantic relationship that ended suddenly and unexpectedly. The lyrics detail a moment of intimacy – “‘Remember me when you’re famous’ she said with a dreamy look in her eye / at 4:00 AM with both of ours open wide” – that’s quickly taken over by resentment – “this was your way of saying goodbye.”
This song is about how poor communication leads to people being on different wavelengths. In context, the ‘remember me when you’re famous’ line is essentially a substitute phrase for communicating ‘this isn’t going to work out’. But no one knows that until it’s actually stated a couple lines later. There’s a reason why people always say “communication is key” – not just in dating but in working relationships, friendships, etc. It’s always better to be direct; mean what you say and say what you mean.
“Empty Hearts and Open Regrets” aims to control the overwhelming stress of feeling lost in life, or at a point where you are lacking direction. The chorus is a set of mantras that maintain the idea of having the power to start fresh: “What I’ve done is not who I am / where I start is not where I end / what I’ve lost is not where I am / when I’m gone this is not how I end”.
This song was written by our bassist, Dick, who is the newest member of our band. This was his first time in a recording studio and we’re stoked at how we were able to put this one together.
“Survivor’s Guilt” is a letter to our late bass player, Dean Mason, who passed away in July of 2023. Dean experienced depression, something we were not fully aware of, and because of that, this song is a personal step of accepting that his passing was out of our control. This is something we’ll never get true closure for, so acceptance is unfortunately the best answer we can have.
Lyrically, I (Matt) tried to express as many details of grief as I could. I even had someone ask me “is this your first time losing someone to something that isn’t old age?”. Yes, it was. There were so many realizations and weird moments following Dean’s passing, all emphasized by grief. We finished the instrumentals for the song first, so the hardest part was narrowing down everything I had to what I thought were some of the most important points. Otherwise the song itself probably would have been 8-9 minutes long. We miss Dean, and think about him every single day, and we do our best to honor him as our band continues our journey.
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