Matchbook Romance
Stories and Alibis
Epitaph
My, oh my! 2003 was the year of screamo’s exploitation. Stories and Alibis teeters on the border between pop-punk emo and screamo; these guys must have been listening to equal amounts of Thursday’s Full Collapse and The Get Up Kids’s Something to Write Home About when they recorded this one. Matchbook Romance deftly blur the line between emo, screamo and pop, while maintaining a sticky sweetness to their sound.
Truth be told, I wouldn’t spend my money on Stories and Alibis. It’s so boring and predictable, that I swear I’ve heard at least 20 albums that sound exactly like this one. The singer is whiney, and sometimes he screams. The guitars go from shimmering and melodic to rockin’ and loud, with one guitar doing little harmonies underneath. While this is going on, the drummer is pounding away with all of his heart. It’s as if someone forgot to tell him that he’s playing in a wuss-core band; poor guy!
I don’t know. I’m just so sick of hearing this sound, over and over again. I wish one of these bands would get super huge and entirely kill the emo/screamo thing, because it’s getting old. Don’t get me wrong, Stories and Alibis is a pretty solid slab of rock music. It’s just so predictable that I’m left yawning, and reaching for my pillow.
Epitaph Records: http://www.epitaph.com/
