Ziggy learns not to judge a band by their name…
Ever since I got duped into buying the album Zombies! Aliens! Vampires! Dinosaurs! by Hellogoodbye I've been avoiding clever titles to music or bands with really long names. I wasn't even out of the Best Buy parking lot when I realized what a terrible mistake I had made. Hellogoodbye turned out to be synthy emo garbage and I had made the mistake of buying a deluxe edition of this album using the rationing that "I like everything in the album title, it's got to be good!"
Boy was I wrong.
For the past three years I have been avoiding all bands that seem to have the slightest hint of emo in their name (unless of course I end up hearing their music before knowing their name). Fresh on the heels of my review of the terrible brokeNCYDE album, I was looking for something really bad to download and review. With my trusty Zune Pass, I started to go through the Zune music store looking for anything that could be as bad as brokeNCYDE.
What I found was this album art.
"Oh My God!" I yelled from my computer chair. They say a picture's worth a thousand words but my first reaction to this album artwork was a thousand tiny voices all screaming the same word. EMO!!!!!! To make it seem even better I found out the band's name is I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness and the album is Fear Is On Our Side. Was somebody playing a prank on me? This is almost too good to be true, it seems I've stumbled upon the perfectly formulaic emo record ever made.
I download the album in a flash, sync it up with my Zune and go to bed. Giggling to myself about how much fun I'm going to have listening to a really bad emo album and even better, forcing my friends to listen to the choice tracks.
At work the next day I was swamped and completely forgot about the find from the night before. I sat down at my desk and started playing the Stardeath & White Dwarfs album on a loop until the mid-afternoon when I called one of my former supervisors. This guy used to be pretty big into the emo-punk scene and was particularly fond of Alkaline Trio and bands like that. When I called him he had me on speakerphone in his new area. He had let me know and that there were people around so I shouldn't say anything I'd regret.
Without thinking I took my opportunity to try and embarrass him in front of his new employees by telling him that I downloaded an album by this band I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness and thought he'd like them. As soon as the words were out of my mouth he had snatched up the receiver and started asking me what the hell I was doing. While on the phone with him I decided to look up their All Music Guide page to see if I could come up with any other jokes before the end of our conversation.
What I found shocked and confused me.
According to the All Music Guide, I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness is influenced by Joy Division and is similar to artists like Interpol and Spoon. I found out that their first EP was produced by Britt Daniel, of Spoon, and that this new album was produced by former Ministry bassest Paul Barker.
After listening to it I can detect hints of Interpol, the Cure, British Sea Power and Depeche Mode with maybe some Bauhaus thrown in for good measure. Despite all of these influences the band brings it together to make the songs their own and they're really good! From Yesterday afternoon all the way up to the point of this review, I've been listening to the album on a loop and I have been enjoying it.
I highly reccommend you check out I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness.
You can pick up the album from Amazon.com here.
