Starflyer fans know what this band is about and know what this album is about. For those of you stumbling upon this album from some sort of Amazon recommendation, this is the bands return to a more rock-oriented sound. Almost every song is saturated w/ throbbing guitar strums or pronounced harmonic picks that form the skeletons of the songs and pull you into the constant head-nobbing groove of this album (this is noteworthy because their previous 3 or 4 albums were more experimental, retro-esque, and probably not even considered "rock").
What separates Starflyer from the average annoying rock band out there, is A.) Starflyer has talent, B.) they come up w/ some strong melody lines for their guitars, strings, electronic what not, and they lay them on top of the throbbing guitars C.) Jason Martin has a unique voice that is both strong and soft and D.) they do this without bursting your eardrums. Their early albums played a lot w/ noise and distortion, in this the volume is turned down a notch. Underneath, The Lights On, The Kissing Song, Unbelievers, First Heart Attack are all strong songs, and that's half the album.
If there's one weakness of the album, is that in Underneath and Major Awards, there's this stinky backing vocals that comes out of nowhere halfway through the song, sounds like RuPaul bursting through one of those paper gates that cheerleaders hold up at pep rallies for the football team..."JUST WHEN YOU RE-UH-LIIIIZZZE", out of place and disturbing.
