As weird as it is to talk about the pop punk “revival,” it’s impossible to ignore what The Wonder Years were able to accomplish in 2011. Coming off of one of the most unexpected debut breakthroughs in recent memory with The Upsides in 2010, the Pennsylvania punk act staked their claim in scene lore the following year with the release of Suburbia I’ve Given You All and Now I’m Nothing.

Five years later, the album still digs at uncomfortable memories and painful trials from my past. Part two of a trilogy of albums, the record deals with the fallout of young adulthood and broken promises related to societal expectations. It’s a millennial anthem if there ever was one – I tried, I failed, I don’t know where to go from here.

Fresh off of a painful divorce and hitting the reset button on nearly every aspect of life at the ripe old age of 27, I found myself mesmerized by Dan Campbell’s ability to connect deeply with my frustrations and fears. On Suburbia, Soupy became the voice of a generation of young adults looking for answers – unwilling to let the defeat of depression drag them away, but unable to find hope to cling to.

In the midst of Campbell’s confusion, I found common ground. “I spent this year as a ghost and I’m not sure what I’m looking for,” he cries on “Came Out Swinging” – a mirror image of my life experiences in 2010. On “Local Man Ruins Everything”, he relents, “I’m not a self-help book; I’m just a fucked up kid”, an admission that became my thesis in 2011.

Like many of you, Suburbia I’ve Given You All and Now I’m Nothing is a deeply personal album for me – one that got me through many late night drives; a coping mechanism at the end of lonely double shifts. To this day, I’ve yet to encounter an album that personally impacted my life and walked alongside me quite like this one did. It hurt to listen, but over time, it mended my soul in the most therapeutic of ways.

I was apparently not alone in my experience. Suburbia kick started a tidal wave of pop punk mania, reigniting a genre that had turned stale. The Wonder Years deserve all of the credit in the world for lighting that fire, but for all of the great music that has come in the past five years, none of it has touched my soul quite like Suburbia did.

For the past few years, I’ve been writing a book in my head and in notebooks that mirrors the chapters of Suburbia – a work of creative non-fiction that journeys through the most difficult part of my life with the album as the soundtrack. Maybe one day I’ll get around to writing it. If not, The Wonder Years still spoke every word of my experience to near perfection. For that, I can never thank them enough.

by Kiel Hauck

Kiel Hauck is the editor in chief at It’s All Dead. Over the past decade, he has been a contributor for multiple online and print publications and was most recently an editor at PopMatters. Kiel currently resides in Indianapolis, IN with his wife and their imaginary pet, Hand Dog. You can follow him on Twitter.