Moment by
Framing Hanley welds earnest emo gestures to heavy-edged modern rock, coming off somewhere on the spectrum between
Incubus' post-grunge alt rock and
Fall Out Boy's cresting emo attack. (The Nashville band could also safely be compared to
30 Seconds to Mars.) The lead single "Hear Me Now" pits ominous metal-lite guitar tones against the kind of emo pain that only kids in tight jeans, wristbands, and eyeliner can fully understand ("Now my body's on the floor and I am calling, I'm calling out to you/Can you hear me now?), complete with a shrieking vocal counterattack beneath the soul-baring sentiments. "All in Your Hands" owes a more straight-up debt to
Incubus, with spiraling metal-lite cloudbursts of guitars dropping love bombs beneath high-wire vocal keening. "Built for Sin" trades in on the old sensitive brooding verse/high cries metal guitar chorus formula that has served numerous emo groups so well, while "Alone in This Bed" provides the requisite change-up: a heart-tugging love ballad with acoustic guitar opening and sweeping, grandiose flourishes. This a well-constructed album, but it's so highly derivative and so one-note emotionally that it becomes anesthetizing. We get it: you're in pain and you miss her. Anything else new under the sun? ~ Erik Hage