Say Anything, “…Is Committed.”

It was an ultimately short-lived retirement for Max Bemis and Say Anything, who penned a long letter to fans in 2018 announcing the band would be closing up shop in part due to ongoing mental health and addiction struggles. Now, a year after performing at When We Were Young festival in Las Vegas, its back with ninth album  …Is Committed.

Bemis channels his personal struggles into a confessional that pulls no punches on the band’s first album since 2019’s Oliver Appropriate. His vocal delivery is upfront and aggressive, pained and passionate, emoting every frustration into each enunciated lyric.

Opening track “Be, Children (Introduction to the Reunion Record)” fuses sarcasm and earnestness, a rallying cry for longtime fans to return to the fold and rediscover the band they love.

“Catch up on the discography you slept on to fall asleep and be children again with me/ Let’s all be young again,” Bemis screams.

Sarcasm aside, there’s a true nostalgic appreciation for the return of a band that comes in the midst of the return of a musical movement. …Is Committed is often self-referential and gives nods to the contemporaries of the genre, as on the driving hardcore anthem “On Cum.”

“The forbidden beat comes with DeLonge on the fucking cosign,” Bemis sings, referencing the Blink-182 frontman.

The record is dynamic in the sense that it’s tough to quite pin down, even during any given song. The musical changes are dramatic and sweeping, hard to soft, fast to slow, aggressive to melodic. Bemis and Say Anything keep things unpredictable, like with the punk-like alt-rock cut “Auto-Harmonic Ass Fixation.” As evidenced by the song titles, Bemis doesn’t shy away from crude humor, mixing in lyrical quips into otherwise serious songs.

“I, Vibrator” actually opens with more of a moody pop sound that turns into a spaced-out heavy rock track.

“Puking off the side of a cruise ship ride/ Being dumped three times, daily grind,” Bemis sings on the unorthodox ode to his wife, Sherri-Dupree Bemis, who adds vocals.

Say Anything reunited with producer Brad Wood, who helped rekindle some of its pop-punk majesty. Some of that carries through on the urgent and upbeat “Psyche!” which runs close to six minutes. Bemis’ brashness may not be for everyone, but longtime fans of the band will likely find a familiar sound. The pace slows, if only briefly, on the exploratory “We Say Grace In This Goddamn Band, Mister,” a track that tackles religion and Bemis’ sexuality. Things veer even more unusual on “Carrie & Lowell & Cody (Pendent),” a rollicking old-school punk track with a pub-anthem sway.

During the mid-tempo “Are You (In) There,” Bemis sings of mental health clashes with relationships, the song changing direction entirely at the end to an emo-centric, fist-pumping rock track. “Say Anything, Collectively, Made Love To Your God,” is Bemis’ unabashed push-back at religion in stark lyrical terms. “Daisy’s” offers a generational observation of the punk rock scene from someone who’s seen it first-hand for years.

“Born betwixt the world and next/ Between utopia and Generation X,” he sings.

“Woman Song” offers a surprisingly heartfelt and stripped-down love song, chalk full of pop culture references along the way: “I’m no Stephen King/ I am the poor man’s Christopher Carrabba/ But you’re by my side right now/ And that’s all I need.” The record closes out with a nearly nine-minute opus on the rise and fall of “Fan Fiction,” a style-shifting tune that covers a lot of musical ground.

Follow writer Mike DeWald at Twitter.com/mike_dewald.