Wait is Myspace still a thing? I mean I have a soft spot for the first wave of emo. Then it collided with pop punk for miked results. I mean I like the first Brand New album which delved into this sort of thing, and I like the first Taking Back Sunday album. These guys dial up the pop and infuse it with pop culture so I feel like I am reading a teenager's texts set to music. If Taylor Swift was a guy less enamored with pop and having not country background, she might sound like this, but then she wouldn't be Taylor Swuift either, so there is that. There is an 808 hip hop beat introduced on the 2nd song. So this is where this kind of music went after that cover of "Lollipop". I think some of the the more dramatic girls I am friends with on social media on the basis of breast size might be into these guys as they would relate to the lyrics and think it was something real for adults to singing about and not get the joke. I am not sure these guys are really getting the joke They do remind me a little of the Nightmare of You on "Lisa" . It's a little more serious but not as catchy as the first two songs.
The verse riffs sound like the big Fall Out Boy breakdowns and some of the Used sappier moments. 'Ride it Out" is a song just waiting to be on the soundtrack of some CW show. The verse works for me , though the chorus is slightly anti climatic considering how big these guys normally go. There press release compares them to cross-between Paramore and Steel Panther. I don't hear any Steel Panther. The songs are all in the two and a half to three minute radio range. There is more of an upbeat tension to "Open Minded" but the lyrics pretty much suck. I need these guys to at least have clever lyrics because if that is not there then I am supposed to take them more serious than is possible. The ballad comes when it comes to " You Can't Blame Me" . This finds the band getting back in a direction that works better for them. To be from Boston they certainly sound like they are from Los Angeles. I guess Berklee is teaching them to whore out as soon as they can.
"Clorkwork" finds the backing vocals too big and silly. The lyrics show improvement, though they tak about being jaded once again, which is cliche I can only handle once. They chorus gets bouncy it's so happy. They really give there producer props, but I think this would sound better with a more compressed practice room type sound. They just used the Fall Out Boy Pro-tools settings on this one. There is piano that has not real need to be on this album when we get to "Till We're Gone". The chorus finds them really cheesing the fuck out. It's this point in the album that I started alternating between listening to this and the new Exhumed and they are certainly at polar opposite ends of the spectrum. The bass tone gets beefed up a little bit for "Salt Lake City". "Secrets" is strummed Dashboard Confessional break up song, though it has a salty vapid flavor that is not like Dashboard. The brief punk of "Where is My Charger" is just an interlude. "Blast Off" doesn't offer anything we have not heard from these guys are their on the cuff influences. I'll give this album an 8 as it succedes at doing what they wanted it to do , not the most original thing I have ever heard but I am sure it's the soundtrack to someone's senior year in high school and they are more likely taking this more serious than a grown ass man like myself can.
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