Review Summary: Good teen angst, somehow.
Tyson Stevens was a troubled man. Although a talented musician, perhaps at times he let his demons bleed into his writing too much. Sometimes incorporating gloom into your writing can heed different results; it can come off as genuine and pure emotion, or it can just seem like stereotypical emo-teen angst. Scary Kids Scaring Kids, I feel, falls into the middle of this. ‘The City Sleeps In Flames’ is the personification of mid-2000’s emo; from its slightly whiny vocal delivery, to its licks and riffs, and even the subtle electronic incorporations. But at the same time, even before the tragic passing of Tyson Stevens, the songs took on a surprising amount of depth and revealed the inner thoughts of a man seemingly on the edge his entire life.
Take opening track ‘The City Sleeps In Flames’; the way it opens with horror-esque sounds; the way Stevens pleads
"Everything’s going to be fine, right?"; the way the guitars dance back and forth in a slightly panicked manor. It showcases a man who puts emotion behind his words. Follow-up track ‘The Only Medicine’ is much faster in its approach, the scream-clean vocal dynamic jarring but in a good way;
"I never thought I’d be alone/Well look at me now/Sleepless nights/Painful goodbyes/Who the hell was I kidding?" Lyrics obviously at times seem very ‘teenage-angst’, but these are the inner-thoughts of a then-20 year old kid struggling with life and all the pain that comes with it. And there’s something oddly sincere and heartfelt hearing Tyson sing:
"I’m so afraid to ask/this solace never seems to last/I turn away as the sunshine fades to black" on ‘What’s Said Is Done’.
Furthermore, the album is just full of memorable moments. You just want to scream
"You left me at the altar/My heart in my hand" (‘My Darkest Hour’) at the top of your lungs. You want to air-drum the entirety of ‘Drowning You In Fear’. And the riffs and licks on this thing are actually entertaining and memorable, particularly in ‘Faith In The Knife’. They maintain a surprising amount of variation and mix incredibly well with Tyson as a vocalist throughout the album. All of these moments, and the emotions you feel through them, reappear throughout the entirety of closer ‘A Breath Of Sunshine’. The lyrics are full of catchy teen-angst:
"My cold heart is a place where true love cannot bloom" and
"I can’t find the words I’m trying to say/So try to forget me as I walk away" are especially noteworthy. The drums are measured throughout, each snare hit with more force than before. And as the track reaches its conclusion, the guitars twinkle on and on, conveying a slow decline into madness as the album reaches its final moments.
And perhaps it’s a fitting end to an emotion-filled album. An album that, through its glaring flaws; the at-times difficult-to-listen-to lyrics and vocals, the below-average production; it’s an album that was perfect for the time and still remains as a great album overall. Maybe my opinion of such an album is skewed because of the passing of Tyson. Maybe everything seems far more… real. But I’d like to think that no matter what could have happened, ‘The City Sleeps In Flames’ would remain such an incredibly emotional album that would cause nostalgia for years to come.
