Review:

on 2008-03-12 joechuck_norris Said:

Under the Boards is a modest effort from vets Saves the Day. Chris Conley continues his dichotomy between poppy music and morbid lyrics. The album opens pretty solemn, and it works extremely well for them now (that whole "Beatles from Hell" thing Conley referred to in an interpunk interview). But something is amiss in the Saves the Day universe... could it be that they're on the out? Around the third song, "Can't Stay the Same," things become extremely predictable; and not in the standard Saves the Day sense, but in the pop-punk formulaic sense. For what they're worth, they are good songs that get stuck in your head - but they aren't top quality. It's the construction of the songs that throw me off. They're designed around 1 or 2 guitar chords per song section and are melodically redundant. The best songs are the opening two. There is a saving grace around the middle of the album, but then Under the Boards becomes undesirably chaotic, unimpressively mundane, and just kinda bad for the last songs. Throughout the album, Conley insists on being nasal. There's not thrust from the gut as on previous albums. Since this is part two of Chris Conley's trilogy, and part one (Sound the Alarm) was amazing, maybe part three will be jaw dropping.
Rating: 7/10