The Used’s Lies for the Liars

The Used, a four-person band from the nowhere town of Orem, Utah (a town with few other claims to fame–it lists as some of its noteworthy attractions Applebee’s and Circuit City), released their third album, entitled Lies for the Liars, on May 22, 2007. The album is a lot like their two earlier releases: fast, urgent guitar lines; enough screaming to make the album reek of emotional overload without grating too much on the ears; lyrics that reinforce emotional charge of the vocals.

It’s perhaps not the greatest album to ever hit shelves, but it could very well be the greatest album so far released by The Used. When I saw it live a few years ago (after the release of their first, self-titled album), The Used, although it was the headliner of the tour, played a 25 minute set. After the six or so songs that the band played, vocalist Bert McCracken could barely manage to squeeze out a farewell to the crowd out of his exhausted vocal chords. Their second album, In Love and Death, attempted to remedy this problem, by adding to the band’s repetoire a number of songs that were without the signature screaming that so limited the band’s ability to deliver a long set.

Lies for the Liars is a good compromise between the first, almost-entirely-screamed album, and the second, tamer release. Musically, the album follows well after the first two. The guitar and bass lines are consistent with earlier recordings. The drums not overwhelming, but still add energy to the tracks.

My favorite part of the album, though, are the lyrics.

For example, consider “The Bird and the Worm”, about a school boy trying to establish his place in the world, but being constantly attacked by the judgment of his peers:
“He wears his heart safety-pinned to his backpack/His backpack is all that he knows/Shot down by strangers whose glances can cripple/The heart and devour the soul/All alone he turns to stone/While holding his breath half to death/Terrified of what’s inside/To save his life/He crawls like a Worm from a Bird.” The backpack detail provides a humbling picture of the persona in the song, not only establishing him as youthful and suggesting at his innocence, but also implying his relative isolation from the rest of the world since his backpack is “all that he knows.”

Here’s another good one: “This feeling never leaves you alone/You pull the trigger on your own/You’re hiding in your safe place/Hiding with your eyes shut tightly/All the way to the hospital.” This one is quote typical of the band: a song about the hopelessness of life. The image of guns and pulled triggers is another common thread that runs through songs by The Used. While staying true to one of its favorite motifs, the band also introduces an element of psychology into the lyrics of this song (entitled “Hospital”).

All in all, Lies for the Liars is true to the reputation the band has built for itself. But the lyrics of this album add an extra depth that was lacking in much of their earlier stuff.

The Decemberists’ The Crane Wife

My first post in this blog was a long rant about all the bad albums that came out last year. While I stand by the claim that 2006 was a bad year for music, there were a few exceptions. I was planning on writing about Forgive Durden tonight, but I was walking home from work a few minutes ago with my iPod on suffle, and a song from the most recent Decemberists’ CD came on. It reminded me how much I love their new CD, and I decided to save Forgive Durden for another time, and talk about The Crane Wife.

The Decemberists (click here to view their website) are no longer the relatively-obscure band that they were when they released their first three CDs. (They’ve become so mainstream that some of their songs are even played in Starbucks.) Their first three CDS (Castaways and Cutouts, Her Majesty the Decemberists, and Picaresque) were released on the small, independent label Kill Rock Stars, but The Crane Wife was released on Capitol Records, making it their first major-label album. But for those who still don’t know who the Decemberists are, I can’t think of a more fitting description than Stephen Colbert’s, who called the band an example of “hyper-literate prog rock.”

The two things I appreciate most about the Decemberists are their amazing vocabulay (notable on The Crane Wife is the inclusion of the word ‘dirigible’) and the subject matter of their songs. In this second category, The Crane Wife may not have quite lived up to the other albums, but the songs did contain some interesting plot lines. The Crane Wife, more than their other albums, has certain overriding themes that reappear. The title comes from multiple tracks based around the old Japanese folktale about a man who falls in love with a crane who has changed into a woman. The theme of war is also more prevelent on this CD than on previous ones.

Although there are certain aspects of this album that are not quite perfect (some of the plot lines of the songs are a bit stale- like “O Valencia!”, which basically retells West Side Story) it nevertheless is an amazing addition to the esteemed repitoire of the Decemberists. It compliments their other offerings well. There is even a song included on The Crane Wife (“The Perfect Crime”) that finishes the story started in “Bagman’s Gambit”. In a year of disappointing music, I am happy to report that I can still count on the Decemberists to release an amazing and very satisfying album.

Billy Talent at El Corazon, 4/3/07

When I first heard Billy Talent’s latest offering, Billy Talent II, I was not impressed. The first CD the band released under the name Billy Talent is still one of my all-time favorite albums, but I found Billy Talent II to be a disappointing follow-up. The songs were undeniably catchy, but the lyrics alternated between being cliche and not making any sense. One of the most obvious differences between the two albums was the significantly greater number of songs about girls and love on Billy Talent II. Billy Talent I is full of tracks written about uncommon subjects (how lies can overtake a life, the laments of an aging prostitute, the willingness to sacrifice everything for an immortal reputation). Billy Talent II, on the other hand, includes too many love songs. The songs that aren’t about love try too hard to be clever, either coming off as too obvious or too senseless.

But even though I was disappointed in its new album, I still went to the Billy Talent show at El Corazon on 4/3 (click here to see upcoming Billy Talent shows, and here to see upcoming shows at El Corazon). And even though the show was packed with songs from the new album, Billy Talent’s stage presence made up for any shortcomings in the music itself.

Billy Talent is a Canadian band, which, according to the lead singer of Cancer Bats, one of the openers, is “fucking huge in Canada.” He proceeded to remind us how lucky we were that we were seeing it at such a small and intimate venue. Tickets for this show were only $12, but the price of tickets for Billy Talent’s shows in Canada cost over $40. After seeing the show, I would have gladly payed $40 or more.

The band had inexhaustible energy, which was most apparent in lead singer Benjamin Kowalewicz. Ben wasn’t stationary for a second of the show, even though the band played a long set and an encore. Plus, in between songs, Ben achieved the perfect balance of joking with the audience and telling personal anecdotes and just introducing the next song. Most impressively, he stopped a song right in the middle when he saw a girl fall down in the mosh pit, and refused to resume singing until he had ensured that she was okay.

So even though I was originally unimpressed with the latest offering from Billy Talent, I find myself listening to Billy Talent II more now that I have seen it performed live. The personality of the band, and of Ben Kowalewicz especially, endeared my to Billy Talent even more than I already had been.

2006’s Disappointing Offerings

In the last year of so, I’ve noticed a disappointing trend: that nearly every new album released by a band that I had previously adored, failed to meet even half of the expectations that I’d set for it.  Of course, there were a few exceptions to this rule, but for the most part, bands seemed to be floundering where once they had flourished.  I want to devote this blog to my own personal reviews of new albums of old favorites and new talents.

Since this is my first post, I’m going to start with a brief reminer of some of the disappointments that inspired this blog.

I eagerly awaited the release of A.F.I.’s decemberunderground.  Even though Sing the Sorrow had definitely tended more towards pop than their earlier albums, I grew to really appreciate it, after my initial shock.  I expected decemberunderground to be even more mainstream, however I was shocked at the degree of the transformation.  The redeeming factor of Sing the Sorrow was that its lyrics remained original, despite the pop beat.  decemberunderground, on the other hand, combined a pop beat with trite lyrics (ex. “the heavens bowed before him/simply a look can break your heart.”)

I was even more excited about Brand New’s release of The Devil and God are Raging Inside of Me.  Their first album, Your Favorite Weapon, though the music was a little repetitive and some of the songs were filled with too much rhyme and cuteness, promised potential.  Their second album, Deja Entendu, more than fulfilled that promise.  Musically, they had matured drastically, and they moved past the overriding theme of their first album (girl trouble) to explore less common story lines (a young boy caught between his love for a girl and his fear of her sexual experience, a man contemplating taking advantage of a drunk girl he met at a bar, performers disillusioned with their craft.)  Brand New certainly changed their sound for their most recent release- unfortunately, they wrote every song to sound like a funeral dirge and wrote a whole collection of songs that were pretty much all about being disappointed in yourself, and acknowledging that everyone else was disappointed in you as well.

Other disappointements from 2006, as well as some raves and more recent reviews will follow in later posts.