The Silence in Black and WhiteHawthorne HeightsVictory Records
Two out of five stars
In the wake of their newfound Nu-Screamo success-and foreshadowing the wake of their integrity-Victory Records have set a signature house style in stone.
The label’s boot camp is now packed with carbon copy emo boy-bands that have the “right” sound, the “right” style, and the “right” hair to move up in rank on the “next big thing” battlefield.
At Victory’s Midwestern base of operations in Chicago, they’re apparently the last on the grapevine that comes from the coasts: this war ended long ago, and the Screamo forces (especially the ones attached to major labels) are retreating en masse.
Hawthorne Heights are the latest pawns in this trend. Each characteristic sonic pillar is in place on their debut, The Silence in Black and White: The screaming see-saw approach to two vocalists started and killed by Taking Back Sunday, the metal growls of Grade, the staccato riffing of Thursday, and the fifth period love note lyricism that has plagued this genre since its inception.
Victory’s latest signings-Silverstein, Spitalfield, Bayside, The Black Maria and the aforementioned Heights-share each of these attributes and make it clear that Victory is quick becoming this underground’s answer to a major pop hit machine.
To its credit, Hawthorne Heights has incorporated these traits with a calculated grace. The Silence’s opening track, “Life on Standby” thrives on a post-hardcore lifeblood in the vein of genre harbingers Quicksand or Far, and sets the band apart for their pop-punk produced contemporaries-it’s a little darker in their lockers.
Another out-of-step flag Hawthorne carries is its triple-guitar assault, which instills Maiden-esque metal melodies into stand out tracks “Wake Up Call,” and “Sandpaper and Silk.”
Sadly, while the Heights fight to go A.W.O.L. from its “Screamo” regiments, it’s still running in Quicksand (no pun intended).
It is this sticky starting ground that drags the band deep into the genre’s firmly cemented clichs. While providing an adorable accolade to the ’80s cult classic, Say Anything, with a longing libretto of, “I’m outside of your window, with my radio,” the track “Niki F.M.” falls back on the Screamo’s watery breakdowns and whiney whimpers, devoid of Cusack’s classic charm.
The catchy refrains of the werewolf love ballad “Silver Bullet” and the wanton wishes of “The Transition” fail to save the day either, because, well, they sound exactly like Saves The Day, Through Being Cool-era. Not to be left out, Thursday stake their claim in Hawthorne’s sound as well, as the band strike token dissonance in the predictably lovelorn “Screenwriting an Apology.”
The Silence in Black and White embodies the screamo-typical blood soaked, break-up concept album. Playing out the ambiguous end to a failed romance with played out lines like, “it’s over and she’s gone,” “let her die slowly,” “spill my blood, say so long,” and “erase her embrace,” has become the modus operandi for this genus’ broken-hearted brethren and the truisms on this record are truly asphyxiating.
Every great rock musician bleeds out ballads of love lost at one point or another, but he or she gets over it-usually enlisting illicit drugs, nefarious scandals, rehab or the true king of rock and roll himself-The Devil. If anything, they don’t bleed themselves in literal terms on their songs, which is (if anything) an obvious, overused way out of being creative.
Let’s pray that Hawthorne Heights finds its way to this or some kind of enlightenment, because as Victory sow the seeds for its next harvest of hitmakers, screamo’s wrists have been slit.
And God only knows what kind of bloody mess we’ve got on our hands.
Dan Fletcher