Review Summary: Maybe it's time to hang it up, boys.
Emery’s first two albums banked on the emo craze of early 2000’s; they started off as a pop punk/post-hardcore band with pretty sincere lyrical themes on relationships and their personal faith. While never bringing anything innovative, Toby Morell and Devin Shelton complimented each other very well with R&B-influenced vocal harmonization which gave the band personality.
Their third album, I’m Only Man, departed heavily from their stablished formula in turn for a more alternative rock-oriented style, with a few experiments that didn’t quite work. After receiving poor reception and heavy criticism they quickly went back to their roots and released their most successful record so far, In Shallows Seas We Sail.
Ever since then the band hasn’t been very consistent and their late career albums post We Do What We Want have more in common with I’m Only Man than their other early releases. They have since tried to distance themselves from the pop punk wrapping of their post-hardcore identity and their lyrics gradually became much irater towards their faith. While still producing solid material, in my opinion (Eve, You Were Never Alone), they haven’t been able to recapture attention from general audiences/listeners.
Styrofoam has been the biggest offender so far; the album features the weakest vocal work out of all of their albums and adopts a faux punk rock/garage rock attitude and low tier cringe lyrics, even worse than those of White Line Fever. It’s essentially a combination of the worst aspects of White Line Fever with some of the attitude of Rub Some Dirt On It (which was actually a good record).
There are some enjoyable songs, namely “Keyser Söze”, “Deadbeat”, first track has a good solo and the other two softer songs towards the end of the album are okay (can’t bother to check out the names), but the forced cuss words and “rock & roll” persona it adopts gets overbearing. I guess the only other positive aspect I can mention is that is well-produced and mixed. The guitar work, courtesy of Matt Carter, which was also a selling point for the band with cool post-hardcore riffs and intriguing melodic sections, also seems to be greatly diminished and very uninspired this time around (though probably not as much as with I’m Only a Man).
It’s just disappointing they went back to Aaron Sprinkle, who worked on both The Question and In Shallows Seas We Sail, to release something so removed from those two albums. The songs are roughly 3 min each and bring very little variety, entertainment or hooks. Maybe it’s time to hang it up, boys.
