Boys Night Out
Boys Night Out
***1/2
Their first album, Make Yourself Sick, was a hyper-aggressive screamo barnburner. The second, Trainwreck, a criminally overlooked prog-punk narrative about a mental patient, a guilt-stricken doctor and a murdered woman that had the misfortune of falling between the cracks left by Green Day and My Chemical Romance’s respective punk-opera earthquakes.
After releasing an appetite-whetting digital EP earlier this year, the revolving door currently constituting Burlington, Ontario’s finest split the difference with their self-titled third effort, an intense, intricate puzzle of prog-tastic guitar explosions, defiantly fatalistic outlooks and the odd shrieked chorus here and there, just for old time’s sake. It’s significant to add, however, that they’ve seemingly outgrown the prevalent hand claps, removing a certain irony from their tales of death and darkness in the process.
Both technical and catchy, filled with hardcore-leaning gang vocals that emphasize its gloomy chants’ sanity-sapping undertones, Out symbolizes the five-piece taking its eyes off the bottle and setting them on the prize of mainstream acceptance (despite what those hooch-happy verses otherwise indicate). Though the album’s riffs can get droning and repetitive, they never get placid. As for potential crossover singles, they’ve got (meat) hooks to spare.