No Use For A Name-Keep Them Confused

I know there are No Use fans here...and I expanded my review of it a little bit from the Album Reviews thread, so I decided to make its own thread.

How did you guys like it?

My most anticipated album of the first seven months of the year, and likely the whole year, was not quite as good as I hoped.

However, it still goes down as one of the best releases of 2005.

My high hopes may have made me expect too much from NUFAN's ninth full length, but it is still an amazing album. The first time I listened to it, I was disappointed. I knew that I had to listen to it a few times and I'd fall in love, which I did. It's not aggressive like Making Friends, but from More Betterness and Hard Rock Bottom, we've kind of come to expect the more recent releases wouldn't be as hard-hitting. MB and HRB are two of my favorite albums though, so as long as KTC kept in that vein, I would not be unhappy. KTC grew on me big time, and now all of the songs on the album have a play count of 70+ in my itunes/ipod playcount after less than two months.

I have to be honest. The best stuff comes at the beginning. Part Two is an incredible entrance to the album. The melody, tempo, and and catchiness of the song mesh together incredibly well, in classic No Use fashion. There Will Be Revenge is slightly darker in content, but still comes off in typical uptempo rhythms and catchy melodies. For Fiona, the first video from the album, is a tribute to singer Tony Sly’s daughter, which weighs in as the song’s poppiest song, which is not a bad thing. It still is more than listenable, although it does not showcase the band’s incredible musical talent as a headlining song probably should. Check For A Pulse brings back the dark-but-not-so-much tone, with darker lyrics but remaining true to No Use’s upbeat style of playing. It also contains the album’s only expletive. Divine Let Down, however, was just that. The counterpart to HRB’s Feels Like Home and MB’s Let It Slide (the acoustic, minute and a half long song on the album) was not as effective as its predecessors. The strange electronic drum beat is rather corny, Tony’s voice was a little high, and while the previous album’s acoustic selections survive as songs you could see yourself singing around a campfire after “Kumbaya,” the KTC entry is not. It’s easy to overlook that, however, as it occupies less than two minutes of play time. Black Box is next, a decent song; it and the next few are in the same class as Black Box: decent but unspectacular. Still very much worth listening to, though. Bullets comes after Black Box, providing a faster beat and classic Rory Koff drumming. Black Box is probably the slowest full length song on the album, but Bullets brings you back up to speed. Next is a rather useless forty-one seconds of noise and a voice speaking a foreign language that introduces Apparition. Unfortunately, I’ll never have those forty-one seconds back, bringing up one of my pet peeves: when bands decide to stick a bunch of random open space in an album. At least they use it as a separate track and not part of the song Apparition, so you can delete it off your iPod or skip the track, rather than having to listen to the monotonic noise every time you listen to Apparition. Apparition is an average track, it’s not going to be your favorite song, but it’s adequate for listening. It’s a slower song, but the vocals are good and it offers a change of pace. Next is “It’s Tragic,” a faster and more memorable anti-war and anti-Bush song with a subtle quietness encased in a fast paced rock song. The song even contains chilling clips of President Bush speaking, and it appears NUFAN pieced together several clips that reveal the President’s “real message.” The next song, Killing Time, is the hidden gem of the album. Buried in the third-to-last track slot on the album, Killing Time is a melodic anti-war cry that follows the life of a young soldier sucked into warfare by family tradition. It's an energetic yet touching song, much more effective than the regurgitated "Screw the Government" cries less creative bands spew out. The last two songs, Slowly Fading Fast and Overdue, provide a nice exit, although Overdue is a little boring and monotone.

Overall, the release was advertised on No Use’s site as a dark album. The content may be dark in places, but the music is upbeat and fun, which provides for great listening.

It's a really solid album. If you want tight, seamless and creative rock with flawless drumming by Rory Koff and better than average vocal harmonies combined with a smooth, energetic flow, give it a try.

Rating: 8/10