Sorority Noise - 'You're Not As _____ As You Think' (Album Review)
Thursday, 06 April 2017
Written by Jennifer Geddes
As Sorority Noise’s star has risen, the band’s vocalist and guitarist, Cameron Boucher, has continued to deal with his own mental health issues, as well as the deaths of several close friends. Their third LP, ‘You’re Not As _____ As You Think’, finds him pulling together these threads, which have been touched upon on previous releases, alongside a deeper exploration of his Christian faith. The result is a record that delves into more complex ideas and emotions, and sonically cherry picks from pop-punk, alt-rock and post-hardcore on a level that emo bands are rarely given credit for.
Written in Boucher’s intensely personal style, there’s no hiding behind metaphorical language here. “And I’ll daydream of the noose that took my friend Sean’s life,” he sings on Disappeared. It’s this brutal honesty that grounds the band in a scene that prides itself on using the personal to connect universally.
Boucher’s songwriting has developed, though, since their last release, ‘Joy, Departed’. Here he skillfully weaves his major themes through each song and, in the process, poses some deep questions.
No Halo, for example, was written in a blur in his car after he drove to Sean’s house hoping to hang out, forgetting he had died the previous year. He then questions the differences between himself and his late friend. “God called you to fulfill a vacancy/I tried to see why it wasn't me,” he sings, later adding: “And I swore I saw you in there/But I was looking at myself.”
Running seamlessly alongside these intimate confessions, though, is Boucher’s glib sense of humour. “They're playing The '59 Sound in heaven/ While the angels were drinking up whiskey and cokes,” he sings on A Portrait Of, referencing the Gaslight Anthem. A Better Sun, meanwhile, deconstructs the classic emo song, seeing him sing: “This is the part where I am empty/This is the part where it hurts/This is the part where I explode and destroy.” Its last line? “This is the part where it ends."
Those pop-punk guitar melodies are still present and correct to launch the band into some big rock choruses, though this time with slicker production, and that works well on Where Are You? and A Portrait Of, with the latter eventually moving into spoken word before dissolving into chaotic shouting. Elsewhere, though, Sorority Noise take a strong influence from Brand New’s magnum opus ‘The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me’ - particularly on First Letter From St. Sean, A Better Sun and Leave the Fan On - and thematically the releases tread similar ground.
This is a sound that they experimented with on ‘Joy, Departed’, but here they take that instrumentation to the next level, perhaps in part thanks to working with Mike Sapone, who produced 'The Devil and God...' (along with several other releases) with Brand New. It’s only on Leave the Fan On that they fall a little into pastiche, with Boucher’s lyrics losing their visceral emotion to poeticism.
Still, his ability to use different writing and musical styles, and combine them seamlessly, shows he is in strong control of his craft. These songs manage to offer both insight and comfort while investigating some complex topics, depending on a listener’s own experiences. Here, Sorority Noise manage to prove that emo bands can expand while still retaining that vulnerability that makes them so engaging.
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