ArmsBendBack's self-titled sophomore LP would be deemed impressive if only for the killer opener, "Where's My Bourbon?" Ah, but one brilliant track does not an album make. Luckily, there are plenty of other worthy songs that add to ArmsBendBack's appeal, most notably "It's Nothing New," the inspirational "We Can Change It" and "The Queen Is Dead." Even though this album teems with crushing emotionality, sweeping instrumentation and strong clean vocals paired occasionally with impassioned screams (as did its predecessor, 2003's The Waiting Room), everything seems more enjoyable, mature, better-constructed and diverse. Alongside the standard melodic, hard-edged rock of "Future Whores Of America" is the quicker, more punked-up "Hyper Real," the super-aggressive "Where's My Bourbon?" (gotta love the insane multi-layered vocals and that one particular shout, "Where the fuck is my bourbon?!") and a pair of alarmingly tender, sparse, ethereal compositions, "Solaris" and "Megan Fox," the latter marred only by the unfortunate choice of titles. We'll just hope it's a joke.

I don’t like using the term “put your money where your mouth is”, as when I’m referring to myself it’s like I’m making a bet against something that’s unlikely to happen, which honestly is pretty weak. To be honest, when I’ve said before that every album gets a fair shot here, including nu-metal or post-hardcore (“emo”) albums, I’m actually looking forward to the day when a modern album of that sort lands to get a good rating here. After all, genres of music are rarely inherently bad, sometimes it’s the way the style of certain types of music get exploited that we really dislike. In essence, this album shows some of the roots of post-hardcore, which do stretch into the world of indie rock and hardcore, and in this case even to some of the early 90’s alternative grunge era bands. It’s all a mixture in the simple chords and guitar melodies, from the effects laden simple strummed shimmering guitar melodies on top, to the roaming, and even a little noisy chords that roam around that merge themselves with the simple strumming and low end of grunge with the underground sensibilities of indie rock, to the slight heavy twinge and near-breakdowns and double bass-drum pounding of hardcore. The effort is stopped off with a light natural breath that’s almost, but not quite the whine we know and hate from generic post-hardcore, instead it feels somewhat more old-school. What truly drives the album though is it’s full-on quick energy. For mostly simple chords and easy melodies, it’s very quick, busy with multiple instruments going their own way but paying off each other, and full of energy, as no song ever stops or slows down, including the cover of “Don’t Stand so Close to Me”, a Police cover. The only exceptions are the acoustic songs, while they are slower still have a continuous flow that don’t stop. Eating my own words has been never so enjoyable, especially going fast-relaxed.