Family Average: 5/7

Oh to be seventeen again! What a time to be alive!

But not like Zac Efron when he almost starts dating his daughter. More like loitering around the local gas station after school, drinking Four Lokos and Monsters.**

Have I adequately set the scene? Good. Now check out this album of our youth and see what the family had to say about it.

** Please don’t ever do this. Please.

HEY I’VE HEARD THESE SONGS BEFORE. But seriously, anyone who doesn't like this album must be friends of Texas Red or good-for-nothing men.

5/7

The perfect combination of softness and screaming. Teenage angst level iconic. The outcasts are seen, the sadness is personified. Mundane, grey, northeast, suburban outcast misery in album for, like when its been winter forever and the sky is just grey, no specific clouds can be made out just grey, and you have absolutely nothing to do but go to high school and be miserable. A certain beauty.

5/7

Watershed album coming through baby! For all of you like me who did not know what that term means. Seriously, I have been using that word in sentences since I was a lad. Never until now did I actually look up the definition. Here it is: an event or period marking a turning point in a state of affairs. Now that we have that cleared up it is totally obvious why I used the sneaky word. There was a huge influx of emo into popular rock music in the early 2000’s. This album was largely a cause of that. For better or for worse it lead to a youth covered in flat ironed hair, lip rings, and AXE body spray.

There is a reason it’s impact was so widespread. This album is a spectacular entry album into the emo genre, while also not putting off hardcore enthusiasts by being an “easy listen”. If you had a high school emo/alt phase and you have not heard this album already go listen to it now. Ya owe it to yourself. 

6/7