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I picked this up after weeks of incessant urging by a friend of mine. I respect (although often disagree) with his taste in music and I had reservations about this one. I was expecting black spiked leather/gay biker/mullet speed metal or something in that vein. I couldn't have been more wrong. Not that this album doesn't have testicular fortitude- it flat out rocks. But it is subtle in the right places. I wouldn't call them ballads, but TOD scales it back a couple times, then hits you in the forehead with a claw hammer. The haunting segues between songs add a very nice feel as well. I can't recommend this more strongly. One of the few albums I'd classify as a "must have".

i've had this album probably since '02. i just recently picked this up again and decided how good it was. This was truly my first introduction to "indie rock" as it was known, but i had no idea that this was that. I have since then listened to all sorts of indie stuff but i'm very glad i came back to this record for several reasons. Versatality is a huge one. The record plays from start to finish and it has many personalities. There are great pop melodies (it was there) and things that drift more to hardcore (track #4). The strange thing is that the album works very very well as a whole as well. The songs themselves are great but to really let this sink in..listen to it many times straight through. Listen to the skill of the single note melodies-and the nice full melodic sound of the bass throughout "it was there" (among others). Feel Conrads pain as he screams in track #4 and also listen to the amazing (different) lyrics that are on this record. Especially relative ways. This whole album is not the most accessible thing to most people. It will take a lot of time to really get into it, but its completely worth it once you start actually singing the guitar parts because you know them so well. Yeah, so overall this album is great and i would encourage fans of ATDI, Mars Volta, Flaming Lips, and Pavement to really check these guys out. Flaming lips seem out of place but if you listen to the last track on the record-completely flaming lips style. But yes, all in all, great record and its completely worth the money.

Not a bad little album. Nothing mind-blowing or remarkably new, but what's done is done well. At its best, there's a lot of inspired and wonderful noise - the way the band plays with dynamics reminds me a lot of Fugazi (which is a very good thing indeed). At its worst, this sounds like a nameless and forgotten early 90s Seattle act.
Thankfully, the bad moments are few and far between, and the good moments are frequent. And there's enough odd bleeps and burbles and hidden sounds to keep the listener entertained and continually discovering new bits of the album - always a nice touch.
In particular, the closing track is a thing of great beauty - starting off with a Pavement-ish progression before exploding into glorious noise and then an odd orchestral bit - very nice.
Definitely an album worth exploring, providing you don't expect something paradigm-shifting.