It hits harder, but also poppier, than their last two albums. It doesn't have quite the immediacy of Joy As An Act Of Resistance, but that felt like one of those albums that would be nearly impossible to top. It is difficult to see how they can maintain this kind of brilliance without finding some new musical paths to go down. It makes me a little sad to see them being hit with allegations that their message rings false. Maybe that is a pitfall of being more in the spotlight, but I find what ... read more
There are some really interesting, grand musical moments in here. i went into this album completely blind, but should have known I would get into some dangerous vocal territory when the album was tagged as "pop punk". For the life of me, I can't understand the high, nasal register that vocalists hit in this kind of music. While it's most certainly a personal bias, it really sunk most of this record for me. When the singer went into different ranges, I tended to like it a fair bit more ... read more
Bangers were all released before the album came out, and one was left off altogether. Still pretty good, but I had higher hopes for this.
It awakened the lapsed Metallica fan in me enough not to give this a hard 0, but yes it was bad.