Review Summary: I wish the best for the band member's work lives, because music is not their calling.
I hardly consider myself a music purist, I taught myself to play guitar, on cheap equipment, I bought any CD I could, I was indiscriminate when it came to music.
But honestly, when my friend showed me this CD, I thought very little of it at first. But those little thoughts were turned into worries very quickly. Playing it for the first time was almost like watching a distant cousin's video will, depressing and with little hope of anything that might benefit you at the end. If you were to strip away all the mediocrity, and leave the shreds of decency, you could make a song, just one.
But don't think these statements are made on a one-time experience, I own the CD, and it's on my iTunes. I cannot bring myself to delete it, because Hoobastank's career ended after people stopped caring about their terrible ballad "The Reason". This album is the band bargaining with society to reconsider them, deleting this album means one less person knows who the hell these poor suckers are.
Let's just start with the good, and dig from there. The band plays with the intensity of an emo teenager's sex drive, so if you seek impassioned rock, it's not for you. But it does make for a nice radio filler album, so if you ever feel like tormenting your neighbors while having some kind of white noise filling the background, this is the CD. The drums are above average, surprisingly, but they fail to carry the dead weight that is the other three quarters of the band. The hooks are there, and they are sort of catchy at first listen.
But if you own this CD, or willfully bought this, chances are, you'll listen to it more than once. And where this falls flat is the replay value. Bands like Radiohead write songs so intricate and moving that listening to them over and over again is mandatory procedure for you to "get" them. On the total opposite end of the spectrum is EMFH, which is a (grueling) one-time listen. Listening to the songs again just restate how tasteless and weak they are. But perhaps, you're willing to ignore the chore of listening to the songs, you might just draw the line at the vocals.
I just don't get it, how can anybody listen to Doug Robb's yowling, slurred, and strained vocals without stopping to think that he sounds a bit like a very frustrated, masculine woman? I am fairly certain that he is the only person who can add syllables to words without even changing the word itself. And with classy as shÂ*it lines like "What do I have to do/To get inside of you?", he certainly charms you from the start. The album can't even choose what the hell it wants to be, either. Sometimes, it sounds like it's a story, told from the perspective of a soldier, and then, other times, written from the perspective of an angsty teenager, trying to understand why everything hates him. (CRAAAAAAAAAWLING IIIIIIIIN MY SKIIIIIIIIIIIIN)
The best track is arguably "Without A Fight", because, despite this album chugging along at a groaning, pained, and boring pace, this track soars above the rest, it sounds good enough to be played on radio. And I genuinely liked it when I first heard it. Of course, now everybody will remember it as "That EBA song that a few people like", and it's kind of funny to think that the EBA version outperformed the studio version.
If you had to find the worst song on this album, it would be much easier than you would anticipate. Both "Inside Of You" and "Don't Tell Me" have terrible melodies, and both feature a cheap, and gruesome electric piano. I think "Inside Of You" wins out in the overall awfulness factor, because, aside from the bone-grinding lyrics and delivery, it sounds like they used a preset song track on the piano, it's that bad.
I really, really, REALLY, want to like this album, simply because Hoobastank is just about the last thing you think of when somebody brings up music, unless the conversation switches to "Music to torture infidels to". So, in the end, I can only think of a select few redeeming qualities for "Every Man For Himself", and if Hoobastank are on their way out, I'm a little disappointed that this wasn't their last effort, because this was probably the only way to go out with any shred of their morality. If their most recent album is anything to base hypotheses on, the only salvation for the band is if their record their own personal Ok Computer. We all know this won't happen though, fare ye well you "hooba stanks", may you disband with some sensibility and form bands with better names.
