Thanks to Cursive, every band on the planet has to try to out-honest each other in their lyrics. Call it the fallout of their neutron bomb of a record, if you will, but the lasting effects of their gut-wrenching sincerity will be felt for years. The most interesting thing to watch is how bands in the indie/emo/whatever genre that existed before Cursive are adapting to their unique lyrical concepts. Enter Benton Falls, from Santa Rosa, California, and their second, and unfortunately, last record. On the band's first effort, Fighting Starlight, the band was equal parts frustrating and intriguing. Their mathy rhythm section and octave-driven guitar howls were underplayed by the need to play things safe and an uncertain lyricist spewing garden variety emo cliches as often as strikingly heart-on-sleeve poetics. This new record, for better or for worse, sounds like an almost completely different band, and I'm inclined to lean towards the former. The guitars surge and leap out of the speaker, and the lyrical blunders of the first record have been replaced with truths not rampantly recorded to tape. The first mathy rocker on the album, "This Housecall Could Kill," starts out with nicely played notes, some screeching guitars, and then cuts out just as the groove kicks in, which is nowhere near as unsettling as when vocalist Michael Richards pleads "Prescribe me something to get me through this." The second track, "The Race to Die," follows the Kerosene 454 model of pop songs held under by the weight of the guitars, with some sinister heavy riffage being delivered, resulting in a climax with screams of "Chase the fucking dream" barely discernable. Aside from the misplaced stop-start intro to "Trial and Terror" and the utterly forgettable instrumental "Broken Frame" (along with a few minor lyrical missteps, but that's to be expected of this genre), the record manages to surprise the listener repeatedly. Bursts of feedback, unexpected screams, and seemingly randomly placed lead figures are layered upon the record, creating an effect that, for the type of music being played, manages to come across as unsettling dark more often than not. Moreover, you get the feeling that these guys would be better off following the advice from the first track and spending some quality time with a trained professional rather than lamenting upon their misfortunes with guitars. However, for the time being, I'll take this record and let them sort out their problems later.
