Review Summary: Hmm...so Emery picked the "Revolution" card instead of the "Evolution" card...but the album just doesn't flow.
The first song I ever heard from Emery was “Walls”. While the somewhat lame screaming caught me off guard—upon closer listen, I found very intriguing lyrics and I soon realized that there were two vocalists, although now I know that the keyboardist screams as well. Their debut album was one of the most grandiose entrances into the scene, even if it did start out with a girly shriek. Then came The Question, whose creative theme of the “Where were you when I was…” was seemingly a makeup for their new concocting for mainstream, as much of the creativity in the songs in Weak’s End were traded for more radio-friendly structured songs. But still, I held on: songs like the two “Situation” set and the emotion of “Left with…”. Then the re-release came and while the “Thoughtlife” demo was so horrendous to the point where I could barely stand it, “Death to Inconvenience” was not really a demo.
And now here we are: I’m Only a Man. To start off, adding “You Think You’re Nickel Slick,” was very upsetting, as the “Death to Inconvenience” demo flowed a lot better, and the electronically-styled intro didn’t flow into Devin’s vocals at all. Now that we’re on vocals, the album does feature better vocals, even in the screaming department, as noticed in “From Crib…”, and the vocalists play more creatively, in ways that spell something other than “I was tired of singing, you take over,”: “From Crib”, “Can’t Stop the Killer”, the two “Man” songs feature great trading vocals, especially “From Crib”, which has a beautiful scream call-and-respond that is wonderfully played. If only they hadn’t dragged the song out to 10 useless minutes when all I wanna hear is the first 2 with the beautiful dueling vocals and wanna trash the other 8 of distortion and basic guitar work. The guitar work is weak on this album, and while I’ve never regarded Emery as technical at all, the weaknesses show here: the two guitars are not used very well, and there’s a bit of overuse of basic powerchord palm-mutage to allow vocals to weave the threads of the songs.
The newest change, however, is seen from the start. Before, keyboards were never even a big thing. I didn’t even know about a keyboardist in their debut, barely noticed anything in The Question, but here: electronics, keyboards, and programming are supposedly the new thing for Emery. “The Party Song” is the first to exhibit much of the new style. The song has pretty serious lyrics, but the song is made catchy, unusually catchy. And here we are at the lyrics. The lyrics are seemingly written as if the band was running on fumes on the last few days of recording or what not because they are definitely not very thought-provoking. The themes are straightforward. The songs are straightforward. And I can predict much of the album’s lyrics ahead of time. Completely unusual for Emery, as while The Question’s “Studying Politics” was immensely catchy, the lyrics were creative and they were definitely not like “You stole money from her purse. She finally found you out”, and the worst part is about “The Party Song” is that the song doesn’t really make much sense: its regarding partying and drugs, yet the depiction of it in a light tone is confounding. Contradictory. It’s the same with songs like “Don’t Bore Us, Get to the Chorus”, which is seemingly a step away from the usual, but the high tone-upped vocals in the intro only creep me out, and the electronic “surprise” is like a pie to the face. Messy. Then they try and throw a cherry onto my face to make it seem much more nicer, throwing upon verses, but the whole song is a complete mess no matter what they try to do with it. This only shows how Emery shouldn’t venture out. “The Movie Song” works the same way: completely hate the intro, hate basically 95% of the song: the lyrics are completely piss-poor and seemingly written by a 11-year old pubescent boy, and the song just falls out from the bottom. The only 5% I really like is the conclusion of the song, which features a fantastic, creative vocal delivery from Toby. “Rock N Rule” is a weak song, it’s not a dead weight, but its weak: the introduction totally doesn’t set us up for the ballad core of the song. And don’t even try to play the “I was trying to be creative” card on us, Emery: it doesn’t flow at all. You just jump into the ballad part and try to throw “Because you don’t have faith” and pretend that it’s a masterpiece. The bass isn’t noticeable as usual. Much of the album seems to want to destroy itself from the inside, and the creative parts seem like moments of drunkenness where anything seems more creative than sitting on your couch and sobering up.
Yet, Emery isn’t all forsaken. Drums. They’ve improved. I’m not going to say “oh my god, wow, a lot!” because it’s not that monumental, but Dave Powell was like pretty much playing basic beats learned from Drums 101 on pretty much all previous songs. Okay, maybe he took Drums 102 as well. But now: the drums are creatively integrated to the mix and I am suddenly very much more aware of them. They no longer are just there to keep beat count, but they’re there because they want a piece of the action. As mentioned before, vocals have improved in both dueling abilities, screams, and basic range: the guys have actually started using higher ranges. And there are some notable songs, even through the sluggish collection. “Can’t Stop the Killer” is a wonderful, eclectic mixture of moderate electronics with good vocal delivery, and the whole song actually flows. See, Emery: You don’t have to go all “Don’t Bore Us” to gain acclaim. The two “Man” songs are wonderfully done, although “What Makes a Man…” flows a bit better through the verses than “Story about…”. Both however feature not-to-par lyrics. “World Away” features some different guitars, and it’s one creative idea that worked…somewhat well. The predictive lyrics and lack of good drumming take it down a notch (there were so many ways that Powell could have taken the drums, but he didn’t). “After the Devil…” features a horrible introduction, but the song was good: the vocals were strongly delivered but the flow was a little off through the exchanges. And again, “From Crib…” is only 2 minutes of actual acceptable music. Jeez. 2007: what the heck is up with crap 10+ minute conclusions for albums *cough*AsCitiesBurn*cough* that feature 80% crap or basic distortion or just guitarists just messing around or looping tracks? Hate it.
At the conclusion of the album, I’m not really getting it. Why? Emery had chosen to pick the revolution card instead of the evolution card, and they had done a bad job with it. The album reeks of some revolution, but its scattered with dead sections, and much of the experimenting smells dead. Oh well. There’s always Album Nos. 4, I guess. Pick the evolutionary card instead, and evolve instead, because the only good picks are songs that haven’t strayed much from the reformatting done in The Question.
THE GOODIES:
“Can’t Stop the Killer”: best pick on the album: good mixture of slight experimentation without meandering crazily *cough*Don’t Bore Us*cough*
“Story about a Man…”
“What Makes a Man…” These are basically similar to the “Situation” songs without the combative details (the two don’t ‘battle’ each other).
First 2 ½ minutes of “From Crib to Coffin”: ugh. Skip the filler junk after you get the meat.
