Review Summary: This is the better off that I meant.
2009's
...In Shallow Seas We Sail was a post-hardcore album practically built to appeal to people like me. Emery had then, as always, a knack for blending physical situation with overarching emotion. "
Is this the better off that you meant?", they demanded in a heartstopping line from 'Curbside Goodbye', capturing real words and abstract regret in one simple question. For all of this, though,
Shallow Seas was, as I said,
practically built to appeal to people like me, and that's where it fell down. The heavy sections felt heavy and the soft sections felt soft; in short, an overall great record was limited by individual moments of artifice peppered throughout. But if there was evidence on
Shallow Seas that somewhere inside the drawing-board flowcharts were a band of real instinct and imagination, it was that utterly perfect line from 'Curbside Goodbye'.
We Do What We Want is appropriately titled in-fucking-deed because it is the sound of Emery finally following their impulses instead of pandering to two different sides of the same demographic in music-by-numbers fashion, and
boy does it pay off. Songs like 'Anchors' even manage to bridge the mysterious gap between heavy and soft in dizzying style, layering melodic clean vocals and crashing guitars to strange but invigorating effect. But
We Do What We Want isn't superb for those in-between moments, however well-executed they are: its quality really comes from the necessary normalization of the band's previously forced peaks and troughs, the organic interplay between the two, and the record's structure.
Where
Shallow Seas was apologetic in both its melodic passages and its breakdowns,
We Do What We Want is so much more headstrong, and as a result so much less predictable. It might sound counter-intuitive to suggest that the departure of vocalist Devin Shelton makes the recipe harder to follow, but the issue is slightly less complex than that. Before, the vocal interplay was exciting but also messy and confusing, overshadowing any musical intricacies with an arbitrary mish-mash of approaches which ultimately blended together into a much less distinct aesthetic than its component parts. But here, the screams have more bite and depth, and the cleans more poise. As a result, the complexities of Emery's music are far more recognizable and impressive as a result of their separation. The mix is elucidating, revealing atmospheric and dynamic qualities far more advanced than the (truly) chaotic experience of two years ago.
Lyrically,
We Do What We Want is an enthralling record, too, which isn't to say that there aren't still hiccups of awkward phrasing or the odd head-scratcher, but apart from the awfully sappy closer 'Fix Me' it's another everyman's analysis of circumstances and the beliefs and feelings that cause them. 'I Never Got To See The West Coast' is a no-holds-barred tender acoustic track which sticks out for its quality but doesn't kill the momentum as you might expect; it merely dims the lights a little bit. It slides in so effortlessly partly because the album grows notably gentler as it progresses, which is in no way a criticism, and in fact acts as yet more evidence that
We Do What We Want is the product of a band accepting the things that make them enjoyable to listen to and stopping all the posturing.
We Do What We Want is at the same time a simplification of Emery's successful formulae, an acknowledgement of their previously developed strengths, and a rebranding, but somehow it also feels incredibly natural, both as a progression from
...In Shallow Seas We Sail and as a snapshot of the band at this moment in time. It doesn't shy away from the heartfelt or restrain itself very often, be it all melody or all post-hardcore. But at the same time it makes a mockery of the makeshift term 'melodic post-hardcore' by largely separating the two elements of that label and doing both excellently. If that sounds like a cop-out, then fair play, but the way in which it plays out on
We Do What We Want sounds fresh, gorgeous, and - colour me shocked - superb.
