The Used- Artwork (0)

Something that receives no credit should always be met with trepidation. It’s very elitist to assume that everything that comes out of a critic’s mouth is gospel, and this blog is certainly NOT gospel. Let’s be honest, the masses reading this shouldn’t just accept a 0 rating because that’s lazy. Rather, that is when it’s most necessary to dissect a critic’s arguments, because 99.9% of the time the rating is too harsh or misguided.

So be scrutinizing readers, but let me propose that this album might be in that other .1%.

The Used’s Artwork is either the year’s best comedy album, a satire on contemporary post-hardcore, or it’s an over-compressed record that the band had the audacity to pass off as, “artwork.”

It’s safe to say this blog feels it falls under the latter designation.

For starters, Artwork is inauthentic. As vocalist Bert McCracken described the album in an interview with Alternative Press, Artwork is about, “Coming to grips with how much you really hate yourself…” Please ignore the fact that this comes from a 27 year old MySpace version of Andrew W.K. who probably has more cars than you have pairs of shoes.

While McCracken might very well feel that way, never has he expressed it in such a juvenile manner as he has on Artwork. This is, hands down, the most horrendously written record of the year from a band that seemed far cleverer not so long ago. Lines such as, “I haven't lost anything except my mind/Expect a thousand confessions that you will not find…” or, “Don't let me go, don't say good bye/Cuz you know that I'm not alive…” fail to resonate because of how trite, ham-fisted, and lazy they come across.

“You'll never make it alone/It's easier to go…” sings McCracken on “Men Are All The Same.”

It’s one thing to explore these dark themes with frustration and rage, but McCracken sings them as if he’s reading off his shopping list, making them seem hollow and disingenuous in the process. There are no revelations to be found in Artwork’s constructed anger and this regression is sad to listen to. Whatever maturity The Used gained from their last studio outings has simply vanished as McCracken’s prose sinks into adolescent mire, one that listeners should be too embarrassed to take seriously.

With lyrics this ho-hum, the band’s sense of danger, or even relevance, has been stripped clean, transforming Artwork into something compact and marketable for Hot Topic stores everywhere. Simply put, mad 14 year olds are going to eat this stuff up.

It doesn’t stop there. McCracken has never been a poet, but the band typically saves him with somewhat interesting melodies, even if they’ve move on from the chaotic stop-on-a-dime madness that marked their early records. 2007’s Lies For The Liars, while over-produced and slick, provided fans with crunchy riffs, frantic energy, and big crescendoing choruses that promised fans more interesting arrangements in the future. Additionally, The Used firing John Feldmann and hiring Matt Squire as their producer was an attempt to get back to a more messy sound, a sound that McCracken even prided himself in.

“Our songs are 10 times messier and noisier than they've ever been,” McCracken told Alternative Press.

This is a lie.

Barring the sharp melodies from guitarist Quinn Allman on “Blood On My Hands,” there isn’t anything remotely heavy about Artwork. Guitars hum when they should hammer down (“Sold My Soul”) and McCracken’s whiney voice has been smothered in Pro Tools and pasted onto ballads (“Watered Down”). Elsewhere, new drummer Dan Whitesides simply keeps time, stuck in the familiar soft-verse/loud-chorus that the band literally beats to death with Squire’s hyper slick production style.

So much for rawness and spontaneity.

Where McCracken promised fans noisier songs, the band delivered saccharine sweet ballads and mid-tempo monotony. Allman’s rich and layered solo on “Kissing You Goodbye” would almost be a highlight of McCracken hadn’t made it feel like a hair metal ballad, complete with overwrought piano as he sings, “On my own, I'm nothing/Just bleeding, I'm not kissing you goodbye…” Additionally, when it comes to the anti-religious zeal of “On The Cross,” The Used never find the head-banging groove they strive for, and the track is undermined by the spoken word samples of a particularly bigoted evangelist.

We get it guys, you don’t like the church. That’s about as subtle as Tila Tequlia.

Keep in mind; however, this isn’t an issue of a band experimenting with a new sound. Instead, Artwork is a band failing to live up to it’s potential, offering something that’s safe, bland, and rarely engaging. Therefore, it doesn’t make sense to give Artwork any merit, whatsoever. When the passion has been stripped from the craft, the work’s value is questionable at best, and this is the case with this album.

So take care to make up your OWN minds about Artwork. Question this blog, and do your own detective work readers. At the very least, listen to the album, because it's rare to see an album so forced and contrived as this one.

Key Cuts: None.

Sounds Like: A very TIRED band.

If you’re curious, click the artwork to sample Artwork for yourself.