Let me tell you about my friend Rhyen. He’s a big fan of Sunny Day Real Estate, one of the pioneers of emo, but thinks most emo these days has been exploited to death and is now trite garbage. My guess is that he’ll take a look at the back cover of this album with the pretty punk boy poses, notice that AMG has tagged them as punk-pop (among other things) and put it under that one short leg of the table to stop it from wobbling.
Then there’s my friend Srinab. She’s a nice, smart, open-minded girl. She loves the emo that Rhyen isn’t so keen on. Lucky Boys Confusion is one of her favorite bands. My guess is that this album will only further her faith in the band. She’ll relate to the unabashed lyrics about desperately searching for something to believe in, girls playing tired games, and feelings of nonconformist, self-effacing disillusionment with bouts of self-confident hope. She’ll love the reliable, catchy as hell punk-pop, heart jerking distortion with bits of ska and reggae. It also doesn’t hurt that the lead singer is a cute Indo-American.
Hi, I’m Deepal. I’m a sucker for honest, heart on your sleeve sentimentality. In “Atari,” a song about some girl patronizing the singer, Stubhy sings the seemingly self-empowering phrase, “Save your breath, your threats won’t hurt me,” but then goes on to say “I’m wasted and miserable.” His voice sounds forcedly angry, like on many songs, but I think underneath he’s a little boy afraid to admit that he was in fact hurt by the girl’s threats. Stubhy, just because you’re hurt by someone leaving you, doesn’t mean you have to retaliate with anger or false pride. It’s OK to hurt sometimes. Just try it, huh, for me? I’ll tell you what, if you do, I bet even Rhyen will join Srinab and me as we hold hands and listen to your next album.
Archived article by Deepal Chadha