“Life’s greatest questions have always been: Who amI? Where did I come from? Why am I here? Where am I going? You areabout to see and hear one of the most significant messages given tous by God.”
Such are the first words heard on the new The Used album, InLove and Death. It’s an interesting introduction to asophomore release, and it really seems to set the tone for the restof the album, as far as lyrical themes are concerned.
Every song is either about suicide, lost love, failed love orjust the usual angst that comes along with growing up. Sobasically, it’s The Used embracing this trend of “Emolyrics.”
[If you’re looking for something like their firstalbum, you won’t find it here.]
This is more of an exploration of their style and an attempt atsomething new, not necessarily something bad.
The album leads with the first single now on the radio,”Take it Away,” and all in all it’s a good song.The heavy hitting suicide song, “Contradicting,” evokesthe urge to dance and sing along, or perhaps that’s merely myperception.
The music flows well with a mix of guitars, drums and BertMcCracken’s building vocal intensity. From there, I wish Icould say that it’s a non-stop rock-fest … but alas,it’s not. There are a few notable songs, as poppy as they maysound.
The third song, “Let it Bleed,” which isn’t asraw as The Used’s first album, shows off impeccableproduction on “In Love and Death” and allowsBert’s vocals to really shine. His range in style is amazingas he ranges from melodic singing to screaming in a breath.However, this was better orchestrated in previous releases.
The next track, “Cut Up Angels,” mixes lyricallywell with “All that I’ve Got” because it fallsback on the universal idea of bad relationships.
“If we cut out the bad then we’d have nothingleft.” The word-spoken intro to the final song,”I’m a Fake” is thick with an emotional rawnessso intense it is almost unpleasant when you first hear it, but ifyou go back and actually listen, it quickly turns beautiful.”I’m Fake” ends up being one of the better songson the album- bringing back some of the old style from the firstalbum that I loved so much, and mixing it well with the newstuff.
There isn’t that same pent-up aggression on this album,but for a sophomore album it’s good enough to get my tenbucks.
