The dueling clash of emo-ambassadors Chris Conley (Saves the Day) and Max Bemis (Say Anything) sounds a bit more like two noses. By this I mean both have very nasally voices. Of course I’m not an ear, nose, and throat doctor, but you have to wonder when you pull up either resume on your i-Pod.
Let’s start over. My opening paragraph was not to slam these musicians. I happened to own and enjoy the first 4 Saves the Day albums and love Conley’s style, tongue or nose. As for Max Bemis, he seems to do well playing second fiddle for the majority of this project, and is the more aggressive tongue of the two. It makes for a good hi and low harmonic blend. There is however some slight confusion when it comes to the overall vocal message. At times the two seem combative vocally, and at other times in union. Not only in vocal patterns, but lyrical messages. I would have liked to have seen more consistency here, but that’s being quite picky. Collectively I think it was a great match up of two very different styles within the same genera.
Let’s talk music. Having not heard enough Say Anything this is hard to peg. Without hesitation I’m going to say there are a handful of songs on this album that could be carefully placed on random Saves the Day albums and nobody would be more the wise. For me this was a bonus.
I do appreciate that these guys probably don’t want to be associated with there initial bands, but come on! That would be impossible. This is especially true of Chris Conley. Had they done a folk (indie) acoustic album like everyone else is doing these days, they might have escaped it.
Overall the music is very diverse from one track to the next. We literally go from pop, to bounce, to swagger, an even a touch of the gruff. Very passive-aggressive musically speaking. This kind of diversity via the music that is good in my book. However, just like there initial bands, this too intimately falls into the pop-punk category. Unlike most bland pop-punk music of more recent, these tall tongues prevail. Honestly, at the end of the day I’d rather just pop in “Through Being Cool”.
