Review Summary: The album falls somewhere between good and not so good. It happens to be impossible to decide completely where it fits.
Until 2005 and the making of 'Trainwreck', Boys Night Out were writing and performing fast-paced Rock songs with hardcore influences, songs that were average, songs that - For the majority of them - never had any deep meaning to them. Then the 5-piece Canadian band took a different direction for the follow-up album to 'Make Yourself Sick' by writing an in-depth concept album following the story of a man so troubled with nightmares that he kills his wife in his sleep and ends up in an institution rather than prison. He is released and then he cuts off his own hands with a machine at work so that he can never kill again.
The story begins with the track simply titled 'Introducing'. The track is an instrumental (Containing some lines of singing) with a doctor explainging the mans condition into a tape recorder. The songs music is dark and I feel that the purpose of this song - Although deemed pointless by some - Is to give us a feel to the album and is very important to the storyline. The story also ends with another instrumental which is produced in the same way as the first track, with a doctor walking into the mans apartment and describing how the man is laying on the floor dying from infection as he's smiling and singing to himself.
The music through the enitre album is rock, with dark overtones and a darker feel to it than anything Boys Night Out have done before. Aside from the song 'Relapsing' which features a female vocalist; They calm the album down slightly for a few minutes with acoustic guitars that lead into a big chorus that reminds us of the rest of the album. In my opinion, this is the best song on the album.
Sometimes it feels like Boys Night Out focused more on the story line rather than the music on this album. With some songs sounding a lot like the previous one, particularly in the second half of the album. Although the band do try to mix it up a bit, for example, the echoing synths in 'Waking'. They repeat a few lines throughout the album although that is done for the purpose of the story line. Lines such as "The lines I wear around my wrist are there to prove that I exsist" and "We were inseparable" are repeated quite a few times throughout. This album will not appeal to many because after I'd only heard a few songs, I thought they were some of the most depressing songs I'd heard since stumbling upon 'The Black Parade' (My Chemical Romance) a few years ago. However the case was back then as it is now; There is a story behind most things.
The addition of the female vocalist, which enacts the voice of the mans dead wife in his head, was a good move by Boys Night Out. It helps separate this album from anything else BNO have done in the past. I was quite suprised with the intellectual differences between this album and the rest of the BNO discography. My feelings on this album are quite mixed, I feel that is it a good album, that is different but I also feel like there are only one or two tracks that really stand out on it.
The production of the album is spot-on the effects and sounds are put in at all the right places and the lack of screaming is a plus point on this album. I think that if Boys Night Out had put in any more screaming, it could have ruined the whole album.
So as a whole, the album is pretty good, but when you really break it down it is not much more than a standard pop-punk album with a storyline, but the storyline seems to be what makes the album what it is. It would be a step forward if BNO follow this experimental format in the future but spend more time writing the music than the actual story. The band show that they can be powerful and write deeply which separates them from other bands in the same genre but are Boys Night Out really meant to be separated from the others?
Best Songs:
Dreaming
Relapsing
Overall rating: 3/5
