I'm sitting here trying to write about Your Majesty by the Anniversary, but I have an acutely sore tummy. Made five-alarm chili the other day, with three kinds of beans and many, many hot peppers. I think I used too many beans.
Three songs have passed on this, the Anniversary's sophomore LP. My belly remains pierced in the throes of agony. I cry to the heavens for help, for my incontinence is more than flesh and blood can bear. But hark! In this moment of weakness, a revelation! It is no longer the nefarious beans, agents of mortal grief, which trouble my guts. My G.I. tract faces a new and daunting enemy. Its name: emo.
Signed to Vagrant Records, The Anniversary is emo by default. Sharing a label with the Get Up Kids, Saves the Day and Dashboard Confessional will do that to you. But even if The Anniversary switched over to Relapse, they would, without question, still be emo-- it's in their blood. Not to mention in their lyrics (from "The Siren Sings"): "And tonight may never shine/ If you never open your eyes/ I keep this heart right next to mine." This is saying nothing of their music, which, while pretending to be candy-coated pop-rock, shares all of emo's key indicators, including melodramatic vocal delivery, seamless production, and shameless overambition. Did I mention they're awfully cute?
I've come to realize that this review could consist solely of lead singer Josh Berwanger's self-important and unsophisticated lyrics. To boot, from "Husam, Husam": "Turn as the earth, and be free/ Weep in the well, and be free/ Drink mother's milk, and be free." Note to reader: see supra paragraph two. Drink mother's milk and face the consequences. Honestly, there's nothing I could do to make those lyrics worse.
Continuing on, from "Peace, Pain and Regret": "I've known a lot of funny people/ The ones who make us laugh/ I've known a lot of lonely people/ Calling from the past." Funny people definitely make me laugh. That's a pretty good point. As for all of these lonely people calling from the past? I have no sympathy. This is why God invented caller ID.
Thanks to track nine, "Devil on My Side", I am now saddled with diarrhea. Like it was on purpose, they follow that up with "Death of the King", appropriately enough the soundtrack to diarrhea (replete with extended-moan fade-out). "Follow the Sun" closes the record like it's important or something. It's not, really, especially not the wild attempt at a cascading, Beatlesque vocal-varnish.
What do you want, a closing paragraph? Something to wrap it all up, tie everything together? Fuck you. Don't buy this.
