Fireworks Go Up You're Welcome. Release Date : June 15, 2004. Label: Baryon Records. Rating: Andy doesn't dig rating stuff. With the strange array of items on the cover, what will be inside this? A tree, a Firebird car, some speakers, pylons... Well judging from the opening track, "The Sun Don't Burn Without Her," it's fairly standard-fare, inoffensive rock. It sounds happy, it's fairly predictable, it's quick, it sounds like something you'd find at a local battle of the bands, or the opening credits to a high-school-based afternoon drama geared at kids of the same age. Which doesn't mean it's bad or anything, but just that it might have a bit of development to undertake before it can overtake the world. But this is only the first song... let's continue, shall we? Nope... track two offers nothing new. Track three. Track four... Track five??? Come on, give me a gem somewhere... every album has to have that one track that's like "oh yeah, here's the opus, this is what this band was put on this planet for..." Track six, "The Heavy Route," is like the 'ballad' even though it's not really much of a tempo change... it just broods a bit more. So far it's the most interesting song, in the verse anyhow, but the chorus gets dull. Hmm the darkest song is the most interesting so far? Keep reading and you'll see why that's a curious fact. The vocals are the most inspired at the end of this song, everything falls into place the best so far. Hey check it out, "Me Myself" starts kinda cool... but suddenly I'm listening to Soul Asylum. Soul Asylum was a pretty good band, for 1992. Yeah okay, I get nothing from this either. Though it does harbour a nice guitar sound, but the airy piece is only there for about ten seconds. Track 8.... Ooh I thought maybe we had it with "Delusionist," it started pretty emo-sounding. These guys keep it on the brink of something great - so much suspense! Well, we didnt go on a journey with this band so much as run around a lap on the local high school track. 10? 10? Come on track 10! Oh hey, "Just A Hate Song" is a bit more doomy-sounding (...naturally), has more grip. The vocal melody creates a cooler sound... agh, but down on the chorus again! It frankly gets a bit corny. These guitar solos are good, but they need them to be a bit longer to carry the song further. But that's all. Plenty of standard verse-chorus-verse-chorus-verse-bridge-choruschoruschorus... and with those little low thrummy ticks and bumpy drum changes that seem to make bands think they're doing something really novel or at least inspiring. While I don't really know their ages, these guys seem young. Okay so I had to try to find out... so off I went to the website to figure it out. While I didn't cull the ages, I was surprised to learn the the band's vintage is relatively high-profile, and I can only assume that no, they aren't that young. They've only been together since 2003, but it's not like this is a group of 17 year olds. An interesting quote from the singer, Dan Coutant : "I didn't want to make sad records anymore..." he says of his emo-band days. Well fair enough, he's not making sad records. But has he alleviated sadness only to sacrifice interesting music? It's not that interesting music absolutely has to be sad, but it takes a very creative and very ingenious band to make plain pleasant-mood not-freaky-rock music stand out. I wasn't terribly familiar with his previous band, Joshua, but I find this project just uninspired, bland, cyclical, pop-punk-influenced... well, pop-punk. In conclusion, argh. Song of choice : I guess "Just A Hate Song" would be my pick, but does it really make a difference? They all are pretty much the same songs... they need to branch out a bit more, take some risks. -Andy Scheffler Elsewhere Fireworks Go Up website Published : February, 2005.