Review Summary: So this is "Prepare To Wrong EP" and whatever you think of Straylight Run you have to say that this album had the potential to be great. With 3 classic songs and 3 good songs that could be classic if there was just a beat change or John went crazy like h
Remember Taking Back Sunday's first album "Tell All Your Friends"? The immature but energetic first offering that basically started a revolution of pop-punk music? Yes you probably do and you are possibly rocking out to my favorite Taking Back Sunday song "Cute Without The E" at the moment. But do you remember hearing something about members of the band leaving? You may have heard whispers and you may wonder were these members are now. They are in Straylight Run, the backup vocalist John Nolan a great songwriter and musician is this band's lead singer of this particular band. Bassist Shaun Cooper was actually the bigger loss to Taking Back Sunday and he shows off his skills on this album and the band's debut album.
This is in no way like Taking Back Sunday, half the tracks are more piano than they are guitar to tell you the truth. And you will not hear John screaming "Best Friends Means I Pull The Trigger/Best Friends Means You Get What You Deserve!". Sometimes Nolan struggles to break a whisper in this EP and in the self-titled full-length album. The songs aren't much about relationships and lost friends like "Tell All Your Friends", and Nolan doesn't sound bitter at all about the supposed screaming fight he had with Adam that got him kicked out of the band bringing Cooper with him. Does Cooper play a big role in this band? No. John's wife plays a bigger role singing the whole first moody and depressing song "I Don't Want It Anymore". The track is lead by the piano and you really don't hear John's voice except for a few whispers in the background during the track. The track is a decent opener but really doesn't set the mood of how epic Straylight Run try to make this album.
How is Straylight Run trying to be epic? Well on there last album titled "Straylight Run" the band felt that they made the album to hard and there weren't enough beat changes. What is this album? A whole album of random beat changes [the chaos that is in "Hands In The Sky" during the last two minutes] and is a lot softer and honestly there isn't a hard song on this album. More depressing? Yes, the songs aren't tracks that are going to make your eyes well-up but the mood is overall depressing and Nolan seems angry at just about everything. But this album is a whole lot more consistent and mature than the first offering five more songs like this and we might have a classic album. Another big difference on this EP is on the first EP you practically didn't even know Mrs. Nolan was there on this album she has some crucial duel vocals with John, sort of a throwback to the Taking Back Sunday except softer with John leading. This album is incredible in it's musicianship but the thing scary thing is how much better it could be.
There are 3 classic tracks on this alb gum and 3 tracks that have the potential to be a lot better. The classic tracks are " A Slow Descent", Hands In The Sky, With God On Our Side". The songs are all classic not so much for there lyrical content because the way John's voice sounds and because of there beat changes. "A Slow Descent", is a song that had to grow on me but John's vocals are brilliant as the piano lead song tortures him through breakdowns/soft/loud choruses and he preserves through it without his voice sounding whiny at all. "Hands In The Sky", is the obvious pick for it's dramatic beat change for a while you just hear John singing softly and then the beat just burst with no build up or sign of it coming [this is the best 2 minutes of Straylight Run] and you can hear John singing a background scream, that song is great and is accompanied by a nice video. "God On Our Side", is the best written song of the album, it has a the roadtrip feel of "A Slow Descent" with the distortion like the begging of "Hands In The Sky", and when you combine the two of those it's going to sound great. It is basically a soft song but it's epic for the genre. These are the classic songs.
"I Don't Want It Anymore", is a boring opener that like I said earlier does nothing for the album and you really don't hear how beautiful Michelle's voice in and it needs a beat change or something to even be consider a good song. "It Doesn't Get Any Easier", is a alright song with it's distorted acoustic beat but John's vocals sound to whiny and the songs decent chorus gets to repetitive after a while. "Later That Year", is another soft one but it just seems like an interlude with basically one minute of whipping sound effects and some vocals by Michelle thrown in. The song has a building acoustic beat but it gets annoying because it doesn't amount to anything, and the song can't when just based on it's good duel vocal chorus.. These are the mediocre songs of the album that could be so much better with a not so complex beat change or if John would expand his vocal range.
So this is "Prepare To Wrong EP" and whatever you think of Straylight Run you have to say that this album had the potential to be great. With 3 classic songs and 3 good songs that could be classic if there was just a beat change or John went crazy like he did the dramatic beat change during "Hands In The Sky". It's still worth a listen as a lot of people have different feelings towards "It Doesn't Get Any Easier". What potential this band and John's old band Taking Back Sunday has.
Download These:
Hands In The Sky
With God On Our Side
A Slow Descent
3.9/5
