I'm a really big fan of Max Bemis, the lead singer of Say Anything. I'd almost consider Say Anything one of my favourite bands at the minute. I'm really looking forward to their new album, which is to be released this year (apparently). Expect a release-day review of that.
I never really listened to Saves The Day. I'm not a massive dan of Chris Conley's voice, it's a bit whiney if you ask me. I am a big fan of Max Bemis' voice though, so I knew I'd find it intriguing.
I realise that I'm really quite late with this review. I heard about Two Tongues a while ago, and went onto their myspace. I listened to Crawl over and over again. It reminded me of Say Anything, and I enjoyed it. However I totally forgot about them since then. It was only yesterday when I decided to look them up again and realised that they had released their full-length album, so I proceeded to download it off the Amazon MP3 store, which I highly recommend by the way.
This album really is for fans of Say Anything and Saves The Day. If you like both bands, you'll love this album. I like the album, but I feel it falls more on the Saves The Day side rather than the Say Anything side. I'm a massive fan of Max Bemis' writing style and that isn't really present here. There are a lot of pop songs on this album. That's not a bad thing, but I feel it's easier to write pop songs. Say Anything can do pop songs, but generally they have got more meaning to them.
This album was good to listen to when I was walking back from lectures earlier, but on closer inspection, I'm not so sure. Chris Conley's voice makes it very easy to miss the lyrics. A lot of his words are slurred together. I think that's why I like Max Bemis so much, he can actually sing, and he can enunciate. The best songs on this album are almost definitely the ones in which Max Bemis' voice is the focus.
If you are not a fan of Say Anything or Saves The Day, then I don't know if this is the album for you. A lot of people think that Say Anything are just a standard pop/punk band, but they really are more than that. Their lyrics actually have depth and Max Bemis, I feel, really is a genius. I don't know how he does it.
Don't get me wrong, the songs on this album are really good. Don't You Want To Come Home is a really excellent song. Chris Conley's voice sounds vaguely John Lennon-esque, it's eerie, in a good way. Max Bemis and Chris Conley both sing from different perspectives. It's a really interesting way of writing and recording. Many people reckon that when a reviewer says something is "interesting", they secretly mean bad. I don't mean that. I can't recall it ever really being done before, so it's cool. I'm sure it has though, but I just can't think of an example off-hand.
Just to give you an example of some lyrics, here's a brief excerpt from Don't You Want To Come Home:
She said that she loved me
She said that she cared
Then she turned and walked away from you
Like you weren't even there
I sent her those letters
On a faded photograph
She said she didn't want to hear from you
She said she wish she could forget
A lot of the tracks are short, pop songs. However they are good pop songs. Some songs, on the other hand, have a much heavier influence on them. Alice and Dead Lizard for example definitely have a heavier sound.
Personally, I find the best tracks to be the slightly slower ones, such as Don't You Want To Come Home and Try Not To Save Me. They are also the songs which sound most like Say Anything songs, and I doubt that's a coincidence.
If you are only going to listen to a few tracks off the album, I recommend Don't You Want To Come Home, Try Not To Save Me, Even If You Don't (Ween cover), Tremors, Silly Game, Crawl and If I Could Make You Do Things. These are easily my favourite songs off the album. The other songs aren't weak, but they aren't really stand-out tracks.
I can't pick out songs that I feel that you should specifically not listen to. The one's I listed just there are songs that I personally feel stand-out. My opinion is continually changing about this album. There isn't really any filler. If you aren't a fan of heavier songs, then avoid Dead Lizard and Alice. Apart from that, I can't really think of anything else.
I do recommend that you listen to the album on the band's MySpace. If you like it, then buy it. I think it's definitely worth it. I personally think that Max Bemis and Chris Conley play off each other wonderfully. The only real flaw of the album is that there are a few songs that aren't very memorable, and some of the lyrics are shallow. But there are more memorable songs with meaningful lyrics than there are forgettable songs with meaningless lyrics. People have been referring to this album as "emo". Those people clearly have little to no understanding of what emo music is, because it is not this.
Rating:
[IIIIIIIIII]
8/10
MySpace Link
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