Reviews

I caught the guys for a bit at Warped Tour this summer, and was quite impressed to say the least. Every song was full of energy, and they seemed to be having a good time. It was also to my knowledge that these guys are good friends with My Hotel Year, who I highly enjoy. This cd however, does not sound like My Hotel Year, but that is not a bad thing at all. What you have here is 11 rocking post-punk rock tunes along the lines of Hot Water Music, and with a lot of variety. But maybe a little too much variety. While the pace of the cd is set by the opening track "Part of It", other tracks like "Turncoat" nearly throw off the flow of the cd. The majority of the good songs on this album are the faster tempo ones, such as "Too Soon" and "So Different". I really like this album, but I feel it could be so much better. Some of the verses on certain songs tend to be rather blah, usually due to the vocals, and then the chorus comes in and it's amazing ("Greatest Story" is a good example.) I just feel the vocals on a lot of verses on this album bring the song down a level. On "Slow Down" for instance, the vocals on the verses are really lame, and then the chorus comes in, and it's like "well, now it's good." I know it sounds like I don't like this album, but I really do. The choruses on these songs definitely make it worth the purchase, and the closing track "Ascension" is very well done. Some more positives are the back ground vocals and guitars, which tend to compliment each other rather nicely. The production is good too. I just wish there were more songs like "Part of It" and less spoken and echoing vocals. This cd is still worth having though, fans of Avail and Hot Water Music should definitely pick this up.