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Review Summary: Hawthorne Heights have finally grown up...and they're pissed. Few bands have been as maligned and reviled around the post-hardcore/emo scene as one Hawthorne Heights. Their simple melodies and cheesy pop hooks, hokey high-schooler-in-love lyrics, and the fact that they were pasted all over MTV2 like some slick marketing gimmick meant to invoke all of the emotions of true emo music, but without any of the heart or brain underneath it all...it's really no wonder that they've become so hated by many in the online music community. Which brings us to the main theme of this record, the emotion of hatred. This record is dripping with it at almost every turn, and aside from a bit of dull experimentation and a few hiccups where they fall into their old cliched ways, this is easily the band's best work yet, simply because it feels genuine. Sure, the hokey love songs of their first two albums were likely based off of true, genuine emotions on the part of the songwriters and band members, but they were a bit late to the party.
I don't know what happened to the members of Hawthorne Heights in between the release of their last album and this latest EP, but clearly something traumatic went down, because you don't write songs with lyrics like "I hate my life and I hate my job, I hate every ***ing thing in this world" if everything in your world is happy-go-lucky and a-okay. Whatever happened, it's sparked some of the first truly brilliant moments from this band, and it's clear that Hawthorne Heights have finally done a bit of growing up and maturing. Not to be too cliche, but the largest part of growing up and maturing into adulthood is dealing with traumatic things head-on and addressing them and trying to deal with them, and with this record it seems that perhaps these crazy kids from Ohio might have finally come to understand that. They had dealt with these trying issues before when their former guitarist Casey Calvert tragically died of a drug overdose in his sleep in 2007, but often times events like these pester and boil away within us for years at a time until they finally come out in some form of catharsis. Luckily these boys have set their catharsis to music though, which brings us to the core of this album.
The whole album's centerpiece is the brilliant single "Hate", in which they manage to twist seemingly overly simplistic lyrics expressing the basic human emotion of irrational hatred ("I hate my life, job, etc") into a haunting post-hardcore refrain on the human condition. Everything on this album builds up to this song Hate in a way, like the peak of a mountain. The remaining tracks take a step back from the anger of "Hate" and stray into more familiar HH songwriting territory (failed relationships are everywhere here thematically), but they keep up the same slight buzz from that brilliant single, like an afterglow after the daunting high.
If you've never been a fan of anything Hawthorne Heights have done before this, odds are you still probably won't like this EP if you're already set in your ways and opinion on the group. But if you actually listen to the album with an open mind, without the preconceived notions about what Hawthorne Heights negatively represent, odds are you're going to find a lot to like here. This is the sound of a band finding their spark again after releasing increasingly dull records for awhile, this is the sound of energy and passion and yes, this is indeed the sound of "hate".
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Album Rating: 3.5 | Sound Off
All sorts of feedback welcome, positive or negative, so long as it's constructive. Found myself listening to this more and more frequently and actually thinking about the record and what it's intentions were. So here we are.
Oh and nevermind the 4 rating here, I still need to change it to 3.5 for my user ratings.
| | | Album Rating: 4.0 | Sound Off
MY HEART IS IN O-HI-EEE-OH.
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So, sounds like they're on the upward pendulum swing. Good to hear; Skeletons wasn't terrible. Not good, but definitely a stonethrow from Ohio.
The review is an easy read for me but it doesn't describe much how the music actually sounds. Good context on the band and good analysis on a whole but were I not to have heard the band ever, I'd have no idea
what they sound like. In fact, I still don't know what this sounds like but I can't fathom what a Hawthorne Heights album worthy of a 3.5 would sound like. But I'm interested to read what you could write about
that!
Nice work.
| | | Album Rating: 4.0 | Sound Off
Yeah Waior has a good point, other than that this is a good review, just expand on their sound a bit.
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Good review. Really interesting, I may have to give this a listen and see how I like it.
| | | Album Rating: 3.5 | Sound Off
Thanks for the feedback Waior, I guess I did get a bit lost in trying to explain the context of the album and it's message and kind of forgot about actually describing a lot of the music, but I was off on a tangent and "in the zone" and this is just the first draft of something I just typed up for no particular reason tonight. I'll remember to be more descriptive about the actual musical content on the record going forward though, thanks for the advice.
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Oh, I shouldn't talk, I'm the king of in-the-zone tangents. It's a nice review, it is...
My biggest issue with Skeletons may've been the lyrics and their trite delivery. If this really is all so hate-fueled and aggressive, would you say the lyrics (or at the least, they're delivery) suck any more or less in comparison?
| | | Album Rating: 3.5 | Sound Off
The lyrics do remain a bit dodgy and trite at times, yes, but I think the fact that the band actually sounds like they seriously MEAN some of the things they're saying for once make up for that triteness with just the sheer raw angry energy of the title track. It's a very simple song and the lyrics aren't particularly insightful or poignant, but the energy is what puts it over the top and makes this such an enjoyable little EP here. If you enjoyed any of their past work, it's definitely worth checking out as I think it's some of the best material they've ever come up with.
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I just listened to the title track... yeah, even if I were particularly convinced by his delivery, I can't stand that much overwhelmingly dramatic antics in a song. He sounds like he might mean it when he jumps that octave though, you're right.
| | | Album Rating: 3.5
Nice to see someone else taking an interest in this. I think its good but i must admit, it probably doesn't have a whole lot of lasting value.
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i was into the review at the beginning i just wished youd listened to more than one song
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Some good songs on this album, but honestly the song "hate" is cringe-worthy...
| | | Album Rating: 3.5
So much better than any of their last work.
| | | Album Rating: 4.5
I don't know man, I reckon if you aren't a fan of HH but like heavier post-hardcore - this would be right up their alley. Great EP
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