Story Of The Year's new album, the follow-up to their successful debut album which took them from "just another local band" to national credibility and headlining tours with some of the biggest names in rock, has completely reaffirmed the band's knack for songwriting. The music itself is right at home for anyone on ritalin or who has ADD, as it is literally all over the place and never sounds quite the same. They definitely set out to outdo themselves and show their audience what else they can do, and in the midst of doing so accidentally showed musical growth. How can a band like Story Of The Year, whose music is in the same genre as way too many current "it" bands to count, show maturity and progression? Just listen to songs 1-13 and find out.

The album opens up with a typical Story Of The Year "hyperactive popcore" song, "We Don't Care Anymore" (also the first single), which boasts a huge yet fairly generic chorus. If you were a fan of the last album, it wouldn't disappoint you, but it wouldn't necessarily impress you either. Immediately following is some of the band's finest work yet. It's very evident that the band took their time to carefully craft the songs and change things up a bit. The guitar riffs are highly metal influenced, and often times derived straight from 80's hair metal bands that sound so cheesy that it's awesome. The difference in how they do it is that their sense of humor is very different from these same 80's hair metal bands, so when they pay homage to these bands by writing big and loud guitar licks, they do it in a serious matter to where its bounciness and ironically, the pop appeal of it, just cannot be ignored. You'll bob your head and think to yourself, Damn, this is cool, and at the same time ingest their take on the music that influenced them growing up. There were most definitely some Metallica cover bands among at least one of these band members.

Don't go thinking that they've taken the route of The Darkness, though. Far from it. The influences may be pretty obvious, but the music is all their own style. They've simply borrowed the best parts of these 80's bands that made them so successful and merged it with their sound, and it's a good combination. What I mean by "funny but serious" is the song "Is This My Fate? He Asked Them" for example, which is by far the heaviest track on the CD, and the most metal song they've done. At the end of the song, the band ends it with the standard multiple-strung open chord that you hear so often at the ends of concerts with any rock band attempting to get the crowd going. The funny part is that they do this about 12 or 13 times continuously, an obvious mocking of that cliche. You go from thinking, "I guess the song is over," to "Haha, they're still doing it," to "Okay, it's not funny anymore," then back to "Haha, they're still doing it!" And eventually the song ends. This would end the CD (a mighty epic one, too) if it weren't for the acoustic hidden track, which is one of the most beautiful, fragile sounding songs the band has done. A perfect ending to a highly energetic and heavy hitting album. Singer Dan Marsala's voice really shines, without the use of any effects or polish-ups. Another song that really caught me offguard was "Our Time Is Now," which has one of the baddest modern rock guitar riffs I've heard. It's pure old school metal meets today's hard rock. The song also has one of the coolest sounding interludes the band has done, with metal complexity, a hardcore style breakdown, and a keyboard in the background to heighten the mood of urgency. For a little bit, Story Of The Year sound like a totally different band, one who influence a huge chunk of today's rock and metal bands, and perhaps one of the bands who influenced them.

You can't forget the band's even more obvious hardcore influence. That is still very prevalent, and probably always will be. Multiple instances of straight up hardcore-esq breakdowns occur frequently throughout songs and keep it interesting. The fact that they don't overdo it is even better. Overall, when it comes to the melodic hardcore/emocore sound, the band is most reminiscent of The Used, Funeral For A Friend, Thrice, Lostprophets and Finch. Guitars aside, they are definitely not the only thing holding the sound together. The bass is dynamic and solid, two things that are hard to pull off without sounding overbearing or busy, and finds ways to compliment both the abstract guitar riffs and the highly energetic drumming. The vocals obviously would make or break the band, and they just happen to be excellent. At times repetitive sounding, sure, and maybe a little too produced. But when you step back and think that it's MUSIC that's made for listening, not for the credibility that you did everything the old fashioned, meat and potatoes way, then **** it. Music is music, and if it sounds good and they put on great live shows (which they do, as found in their recently released live DVD/CD "Live In The Lou"), and they aren't trying to sell out, then who really cares how it's done. If you're more worried about how the music is recorded instead of the quality of the actual music, then you don't need to be listening to it. This album is purely for their fans, and if you weren't a fan before, I dare you to listen and say there isn't at least ONE part of a song that you really dug.


1. We Don't Care Anymore
2. Take Me Back
3. Our Time Is Now
4. Taste The Poison
5. Stereo
6. Five Against The World
7. Sleep
8. Meathead
9. March of The Dead
10. Pay Your Enemy
11. Wake Up The Voiceless
12. "Is This My Fate?" He Asked Them

Dec 14 Tremont Music Hall Charlotte, NC
Dec 15 Roxy Theatre Atlanta, GA
Dec 16 Bogarts Cincinnati, OH
Dec 17 Agora Theare Cleveland, OH
Dec 18 Headliners Toledo, OH
Feb 15 San Diego Sports Arena San Diego, CA
Feb 16 San Diego Sports Arena San Diego, CA
Feb 17 Mesa Amphitheatre Pheonix, AZ
Feb 18 County Coliseum El Paso, TX
Feb 20 Nokia Grand Prairie, TX
Feb 21 Freeman Coliseum San Antonio, TX
Feb 22 Verizon Wireless Houston, TX
Feb 24 Metro Park Jacksonville, FL
Feb 25 Tinker Field Orlando, FL
Feb 26 Pompano Beach Amphitheatre Boca Raton, FL
Feb 28 Gwinnett Center Duluth, GA