Hawthorne Heights don’t do middle ground. Like marmite, you either love them or hate them and, at last count, more than 500,000 people loved them enough to buy their last record, ‘The Silence In Black And White’. But by the same token there’s a legion of people who hate this band with a passion, seeing them as generic toss that sounds like every other band peddling out the token emo/screamo stuff for the myspace generation. I sat on the fence for the last record by giving it 2.5 out of 5 – for all the catchy songs and clever hooks, it was a record full of cliches and generic points. The token screaming, the obvious breakdowns…it all smacked of a band trying too hard to sound like what was fashionable at the time. Regardless of what I felt, it worked and the band sold copies by the bucketload.
‘If Only You Were Lonely’ is the band’s second album for Victory and is much better. The screaming has been cut back so it’s only there in places, making this less generic and forced. Ultimately it’s no more than a pop record and is destined for further MTV play – as Fall Out Boy proved with their latest record. The vocals on ‘This Is Who We Are’ and ‘Remember Softly’ are so clean cut it’s almost boyband-esque. Both songs have enormous chrouses though and the squeaky clean production job helps no end. ‘They Came With Nothing’ has a huge chorus and is 2006’s ‘Ohio Is For Lovers’. Amazingly it’s not the band’s first single, but trust me. It will be at some stage.
But for all the razzle dazzle and poppy parts to this album, it’s another case of the heard-it-all-befores. There are catchy chrouses aplenty, but I swear I heard ‘Blessings Out Reach’ and ‘Saying Sorry’ before – probably even on the last HH record. And that’s not meant to be said just because it’s a band it’s seemingly cool to dislike; they do genuinely sound very similar to other bands and even songs this band have released before. To sum up, Hawthorne Heights fans will go apeshit over this because it’s better than the last record. If you were a fan before, you’ll still be a fan now. But I doubt this will win over any of those who hated first time round. It’s arguably even more poppy than ‘The Silence In Black and White’ and a million miles away from the Victory bands the label started with. I can certainly see major labels looking to sweep HH away because this is destined to sell close to 1-million copies – but whilst it’s an improvement, there’s still work to be done if they’re going to quieten the haters…
www.hawthorneheights.com
Victory Records
Paul