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CD Review: Story of the Year – In the Wake of Determination

Posted by andPOP Staff on November 14th, 2005

I first heard Story of the Year when I was in a car with some pretty emo people, so that may have something to do with why I liked them well enough then. I was also a teenager at the time. I believe I’m still a teenager at heart, but apparently I’ve moved beyond the screaming anthems of radical youth. Or maybe I’m just jaded.

In the Wake of Determination, SotY’s sophomore album, is less emo than I remembered them and more angry and raw. One of the band members commented in the notes of the CD jacket – and they are really good notes, so fans should be happy – that they were aiming for a “live” feel when they recorded. And it does sound as if they were playing a show. It’s like I’m right there in the mosh pit and dear God, the screaming.

Screams and revolutionary messages galore. On “Stereo,” we’ve got lyrics like “We’ve been taught to love this robotic formula.” On “Wake Up the Voiceless,” it’s “We’re taught to imitate, segregate and divide.” After a while, it all blends into one punked-out roar of empty words and pounding beats. And not in a good, one-song-segues-nicely-into-the-next kind of way, but in a why-does-this-track-sound-exactly-the-same-as-the-last way. How can you rage against conformity when all the songs you’re doing it with sound the same? And when you’ve got someone telling you that “Playing this song makes me feel like the raddest dude on planet fucking Earth” (this really appears in the notes) …when you read that, it’s like, “Dude, okay. You are hardcore rocking. We got it after the first song.”

Points for effort (and volume – a good CD to put on when you’re really pissed off, I suppose), but I guess I’m just not that angry with the establishment today.

In the Wake of Determination – Story of the Year
2*/5*

1. We Don’t Care Anymore
2. Take Me Back
3. Our Time is Now
4. Taste the Poison
5. Stereo
6. Five Against the World
7. Sleep
8. Meathead
9. March of the Dead
10. Pay Your Enemy
11. Wake Up the Voiceless
12. “Is This My Fate?” He Asked Them

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Categories: Rock