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So They Say - Life in Surveillance

Rating

RIYL

Armor for Sleep
Matchbook Romance
The Receiving End of Sirens

Tracklist

1. Just Forget My Name
2. These Nights Are Long
3. Wake Me Up
4. An Apology
5. I Won't Tell
6. Whisper of Sin
7. You're Welcome
8. Close Range
9. A Defeated Accomplishment
10. The Hand of God
11. Nuclear Sunrise

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Recent Ratings
Rick Gebhardt

So They Say are one of those bands that are in a sort of grey area as far as classifying them to a specific sub-genre. You can call them the ever so broad alternative rock and that’s about as far as you can really go without having major objections and raising debate as to where they should be rightfully classified. I find myself sharing that same sense of perplexity when forming an opinion on this album.

Life in Surveillance is the follow up to their 2006 debut full length, Antidote for Irony. Antidote for Irony didn’t get the greatest reception from critics and music fans alike, myself included. It didn’t do anything to stand out from the crowd of similar bands and was painstakingly boring. One thing that immediately stands out about Life in Surveillance in comparison to their prior release is the production. Producer Matt Hyde (Strung Out, Slayer) did a phenomenal job in getting the most out of what So They Say has to offer. What I believe could have been a big problem with their previous album being a flop -- the curious choice of Matt Squire (Panic! At the Disco, Cute is what we Aim For) as producer. Everything from the proportionate mixing to the seamless tracking of the album adds substantially to the quality of Life in Surveillance. One thing that stood out on the majority of the tracks is how uncanny the resemblance is between Life in Surveillance and Armor for Sleep’s What to Do When You Are Dead. You could swear you hear Ben Jorgensen singing in many parts of the album. Not saying that this is a bad thing necessarily, just trying to paint a picture.

The first single off the album “Wake Me Up” is mediocre at best; due to it being the first single I listened to that track with expectations for something far more than what I got. Three tracks specifically, “These Nights Are Long”, “An Apology” and “You’re Welcome” all display the attribute that make So They Say so appealing, melodies so catchy that it makes you unable to toss the album aside. This quality makes the album very easy to grow on you as it did with me. With a few repeated listens the album got much better.

Ultimately this album has no lows to it. Unfortunately the same can be said about its high points. There’s nothing that’s stunningly great or cringingly bad, but it’s consistently solid in an average manner. If they show as much improvement on their next album as they did from Antidote for Irony to Life in Surveillance, this band will definitely be going places.

--Andy Young

Author

AndyY9587

Last updated: 09/29/2009 08:59PM

Comments

Spartan E7

11/05/2007

12:05PM

Age: 25

Location
Infinitely Inwards

Good review man. I can't believe that a producer that worked with Slayer could turn these guys around. This is a decent album indeed.

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