If there was one problem with Armor For Sleep it would be the fact that after listening to an entire album in one sitting, it would all sound like one big song. What To Do When You Are Dead, the band’s last effort, fell victim to this. You could blame part of that on the fact that is was a concept album, about one story. But that’s really no excuse. Coheed and Cambria write concept album after concept album, and they manage to write songs that sound different from one another.
There is a certain comfort in listening to Armor For Sleep however, and their latest album Smile For Them pulls it off perfectly. You can almost sing along with every melody in the song, on your first listen. These guys seem to have their own ‘melodic’ style. Listen to the track “Williamsburg” for the perfect example.
In a time when I seem to find myself listening to more and more laid back/mellow music, Armor For Sleep is a nice change of pace. Driving guitars and aggressive vocals create the perfect mix for a new rock disc. They don’t find themselves falling into the ’screamo’ cliché, or the ‘radio rock’ trash. They seem to find that oh so elusive happy middle ground.
There are a few ‘electronic’ influenced mellow tracks that always make the Armor For Sleep discs what they are. “Hold The Door”, with it’s ambient keyboards and equally ambient drum loop, mixed strangely with the Weezer-esque guitar lick throughout the song. “Snow Globe” is a nice delay-layered track that sits you back down after the huge “Run Right Back In” (more on that later). The appropriately titled “Lullaby” wraps up the ‘mellow’ tracks on the disc, and it does so nicely.
The aforementioned “Run Right Back In” is easily my favorite track on the disc. It screams ‘energy’, and the drums are freakin’ huge. The guitar is simple, but brings the energy to the song.
The main problem with this album is the end. Where What To Do When You Are Dead laid it all on the line with the last track; this album fails to do so. One of my favorite things about listening to a good disc is waiting for the end to see what they pull off. You have the classic mellow acoustic song on a disc full of screaming and energy, or you have the song where they take things up another notch (which is what Armor For Sleep did on their last album). This disc, however, lacks that. The closing track pretty much feels like any other song on the album.
If you don’t own any Armor For Sleep, I would suggest What To Do When You Are Dead over Smile For Them any day. But if you already own all of their albums, pick this one up. You won’t be disappointed.
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