Strung Out
Exile In Oblivion

THE REVIEW

Do not be misled by blastbeat and heavy guitars: the greatest merit/flaw of the crazies from Simi Valley has always been that untamable sugary soul, blatantly kitsch and radio-friendly. After all, they have never made any secret of their pop lifeblood: Jason Cruz regularly praises the Beatles and Sixties surf.

The real problem is to control, tame this nature, avoiding it spiraling into intolerably catchy tunes or other notoriously tacky absurdities. Exile In Oblivion manages this only partially, marking an intermediary transition after the crossover turn of the excellent "The Element of Sonic Defiance" and the good "An American Paradox."

The album in question (I’ve been dreaming for years to write "in question") records Strung Out's desire to define a new and original sound, a meticulous trademark far from the pop-punk echoes of their beginnings: a certainly commendable intent, but unfortunately here still far from being fully realized. Make no mistake, it’s not a bad work, but hailing it as the ultimate of 2004 is definitely a stretch.

The start is breathtaking: the cameo of Elle Fitzgerald is instantly obliterated by the syncopated groove of "Analog," molten lead where sentimentalism flounders in the sixteenth-note neuroses of the most caustic Rob Ramos. You can feel that something has changed, there is a desire to dare. "Blueprint of the Fall" screams it to you, outlawing the terminal preppy idleness of Ten Foot Pole. Jordan Burns’s double pedal is a perpetual tribute to Lombardo and Benante, echoes of Samiam and Naked Raygun blend perfectly in the thrashiest post-hardcore: by the time you reach the countertempo bridge in "Katatonia," you really begin to believe that the five have squared the circle. You think everything is perfect.

And the rest of the CD, for now, does nothing to prove you wrong: the hardcore halfway between thrash and Boysetsfire on "Her Name In Blood" is a fable crashing against the absolutely gratuitous shout of Jason Cruz, who finds his grace in imperfection. The sing-along chorus reaches absurd levels of tackiness, I admit, but there are those who can afford it: this dissonant and dusty shard certainly wouldn’t look out of place in a Tarantino flick à la Grindhouse.

Everything is perfectly studied, down to the smallest detail: even the most tranquil channels offer delightful surprises. "Angeldust" fades into its arpeggios and the fade out of the tail, while "Vampires" cauterizes wounds because then she arrives, the song you’ve been dreaming of for years. "No Voice of Mine." Artificial and alien. Love litanies in binary code. Xenomorphs that sigh life. Hiroshima.

Enough. The toy is broken. It’s true, no one complains when "Anna Lee" resurrects Virginia Madison, but then all good intentions get bogged down in the banal déjà vu that follow, gaudy parodies of the good old days. Matches last 90 minutes. One day Strung Out will learn that. Intoxicated by their pomposity, they produce "Scarlet," which is nothing more than an anonymous ballad without ideas tormented by the most blatant sing-along; a midtempo dragged to oblivion in which Jason performs the task, not knowing where to turn next. The script repeats itself precisely in "Swan Dive," a more or less blatant plagiarism of Pulley that can at best aspire to a poor role as an extra. That's how it is, the second part of Exile. Kitsch reigns supreme. Few ideas and great neglect in the arrangement, which often results in a sterile contest of virtuosity between the rhythm section and the two lead guitars, sure they've already played the winning hand. What’s the point, for example, of changing the rhythm five times in "Never Speak Again," apart from trying to satisfy unbearable "prog" ambitions? And enough with this piano. A piano fade-in and everything permeates with that radical chic vacuity that saves in the corner even the most unlikely ballroom leftovers. "This is so boring! It says nothing." "Yeah, but listen to how they've evolved. I mean, there's a piano."; "Oh, but Yellowcard sucks." "Yes, but feel the evolution. I mean, the piano." Fragments of lived life, indeed.

Strun(g)z are everything and its opposite, and this is perhaps their most representative album, for better or worse. Brilliant pearls followed by outrageous disasters. Of course, their prima donna ambitions are in broad daylight, but I forgive them. They put their faces out there. They took risks. And they ended up with a Pyrrhic victory. But history doesn’t always have to repeat itself. And indeed, 2009 will come soon.