Say Anything - Anarchy My Dear Review

Hey pretentious hipsters! Your arch-enemy, Max Bemis, is back and ready to piss you off! Let me start this review by saying this. I have NO CLUE why this album is receiving some bad reviews. Not only that, but every bad review seems to complain about the fact that this album isn’t ...Is A Real Boy Part 2. This is a pretty bull crap reason to negatively review this album! I’ve pretty much accepted the fact no album by Say Anything is ever going to be like ...Is A Real Boy Part 2. ...Is A Real Boy was an album created out of young angst and immaturity combined with drugs. Now, the band is older, sober, much more mature, and still lyrically a force to be reckoned with. Anarchy My Dear holds some clues that this album could have been IARBP2, (“Admit It Again” is obviously a sequel to the great “Admit It” off IARB) but I really don’t care that the album isn’t a sequel. To me, Anarchy My Dear is another wonderful album to the discography of Say Anything.

Say Anything works for me because of the wonderful lyricism that spills out of Bemis’s mouth on every album. Bemis has always not gave a shit if he pissed anyone off with his lyrics. At the same time, he always finds a way to be creative with topics that have been beaten like a dead horse. I don’t think anyone is better with honest, truthful love songs than Bemis. It shows once again this album with the wonderful “So Good” which has Bemis using great metaphors and personal angst to paint a picture on how much he loves his wife. Another thing that shows strongly on this album is the maturity of Bemis and the band. Don’t worry fans. Bemis wrote a special tribute to the hipsters, (Admit It Again) but also delves into some more mature topics that the band would not have touched 10 years ago. Take “Peace Out” for example:  where Bemis puts his drug addiction behind him. I always admire someone that can look at their mistakes, realize it happened, and turn an experience into art.

Other positive factors to mention before the negative. The musicianship is top notch as each band member gets a chance to experiment at some point in the album. Group vocals, bass solos, guitar hooks, drum solos, you get the idea. Plus, the guest spots by Bemis’s wife, Sherri DuPree, are fantastic as shown in the upbeat sounding “Overbiter”. As you readers will get to know, I always give a band points for being a little creative. I’d rather a band fail by being creative than being generic.

Unfortunately, there are some negatives to bring up with the album. Some songs go on a little longer than they should. “The Stephen Hawking” is a great example of a song that could have ended on a great spot but went another minute than it should of. Also, the album does lose its high energy towards the end of the album. With 3/4 of the album being so fast paced, it gets boring with the last two songs being the slowest and also the longest.

The final verdict:  I really don’t understand all the negative reviews of Anarchy My Dear. Yes, it is not the best Say Anything album, but it is not a bad album by any stretch of the imagination. Even Say Anything’s weakest work is pretty far ahead of the generic pop punk that you hear a lot of on the radio. So Anarchy My Dear is not Say Anything’s best work, but it is a damn good one that shows the band’s maturity. Plus, they still piss off the hipsters, so I don’t see a problem with that.

FINAL GRADE: B
CHOICE CUT: Peace Out


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcfbR_sDtHo