Review Summary: Until the night when it got way too serious, and you showed me your damaged wrists
Considering the average pop punk band has about as much lyrical finesse as a schoolboy's diary,
It Never Goes Out was something of an oddity. In songs like 'An Ode to the Nite Ratz Club', vocalist Christian Holden spins a tale of young love tragically broken by death, and this theme serves as the primary focus of follow up LP
Home, Like NoPlace Is There.
With roots entrenched deeply in both pop punk and emo, this is a deeply affecting record. Stylistically it's a recycling of every main idea in both genres over the last five or so years, but that doesn't make it any less enthralling. From the very first moment the record reeks of desperation, prompting teary-eyed sing-alongs as soon as 'open the curtains' line erupts eagerly from the subdued acoustics of 'An Introduction to the Album'. There's a boatload of cheesiness to be found, but that makes sense as real emotions ARE cheesy, our innermost thoughts translated into audible delights, and here it's no different. 'Among the Wildflowers' takes the grief to a new level with soft drums and a more atonal singing style that soon transforms into something far more unstable. Gut-wrenching screams deliver a melancholic cry of 'chewing wildflowers to numb the pain', foreshadowing the thick riff torrent in the songs second half.
It's groovy moments like this and the breakdown in Life In Drag that really convey the albums emotion without any actual words being sung. Really, this thing lives and dies off these tiny portions of almost overpowering sadness that manage to leak into the otherwise barebones songs. The production on this record isn't particularly strong, and the guitars and bass overlap far too often with no clear distinction. During the faster moments, the drums pretty much vanish entirely, and with only Holden delivering audibly things become a little tiresome, especially the constantly layered vocals that become a real chore to sit through.
But, when this album takes off, it takes off. On 'The Scope of All This Rebuilding', Holden comes the closest to anyone actually crying on record that I've ever heard, and on 'Life In Drag' his vocals come dangerously close to tearing as he delivers a bleak portrayal of suicide and gender dysphoria that serves best as an anchor to carry the entire concept. By contrast, the intriguing but ultimately disappointing 'Housebroken' really lacks the songwriting chops to stand out, and right up until and including closer 'Dendron' the band seem to be incapable of reviving their earlier successes.
