Davey Von Bohlen telegraphs the one joyous punch of this album in his first line: "I've got my body and my mind on the same page, and honey now happiness is all the rage." This is a feel-good album, plain and simple. While not as nuanced or oblique as earlier Promise Ring albums, it's a hell of a lot more fun.
Has any genre suffered more disrespect than emo? Long before it became mainstream rock's default option when it came to loud and fast - back when it was still linked to hardcore, small-run vinyl singles, and five-bands-for-$5 matinee shows - emo was dismissed as half-assed punk rock for crybabies and political lightweights. Sure, it's hard to deny that a lot of old-school, underground emo was plain bad, of course. The worst examples sounded liked hardcore… more »
