Review: The Used - Imaginary Enemy
- Apr 4, 2014
- 2 min read
[Hopeless, 2014]
Rating: 2/10
By Marlena Scott, News Editor
Key Tracks: “A Song To Stifle Imperial Progression (A Work In Progress)”
Post-In Love And Death The Used is an unfamiliar band. Maybe this is due to the band’s entire audience growing up out of 2004 and filtering off into other, more complex genres. Did The Used lose its touch or did the band’s audience lose its ear?
Imaginary Enemy is heartbreaking. There are so many promising beginnings on tracks, ones to make old fans excited for a renewal of an old sound. But, with the arrival of Bert McCracken’s voice, track after track is ruined.
The first 24 seconds of the opener, “Revolution,” are thrilling and hard. It has a kind of early-2000s feel, like the intros to the self-titled record or something from an early My Chemical Romance song. It may even be a little more metallic. But when McCracken’s voice comes in, the way-too-soft effect on his voice leaves the entire song ruined.
A cheesy keyboard sound is carried into the next song, “Cry,” and onto the next, “El-Oh-Vee-Ee.” McCracken’s voice gets a little whinier and he screams at one point in “Cry”--which is a good thing--but the lyrics are amateurish and the music itself is too simple.
“A Song To Stifle Imperial Progression (A Work In Progress)” is the best song on the record, at least for the first minute. It is then cut off by a lame, jumpy, jam-bass riff. If The Used stuck to the hard shit that it is surprisingly pretty good at, Imaginary Enemy could have a shot at relevance. But it doesn’t.
It’s obvious the album has a message, and a strong one at that. An important one. But the execution is poor. The Used would like to grow up, but it seems it’s stuck in simple writing and a lack of originality.
The biggest disappointment of the record and from The Used in general is the ultimate sell-out song “Generation Throwaway.” It’s respectable for a band to want to sell records, but this is an obvious nominee for a hopeful radio hit. Right up there with garbage like Avicii and Imagine Dragons: weird techno-rock.
It’s unclear whether or not the 2004 audience would even perk up at this album, because it’s a huge disappointment. A 10-year-old girl named Marley who convinced her mom to let her dye her hair red, inspired by a McCracken promo photo, would even be bummed about it… probably.
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