Send "The Used " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Sputnikmusic |
 The guys in The Used have accomplished quite a bit, and have a lot they can be proud of. Over the course of their career they’ve written a number of great songs and released a collection of diverse albums. This diversity, coupled with a great live show, helped their albums achieve gold and even platinum status and allowed them to headline around the globe. Despite these accomplishments, though, the one thing the band hadn’t pulled off was an album that didn’t contain any filler – although Lies for the Liars came close. It turns out that they just needed one more attempt in order to finally reach that goal because Artwork consists entirely of great songs and it is, again, slightly different than previous albums. Moving forward from Lies for the Liars, the band made a conscious effort to scale back the studio tricks and return to the guitar-dominated direction of their debut. In doing so, the songs on Artwork take on a more streamlined feel due to the lack of jolting transitions that were often created by the electronic elements. It’s not only the lack of jarring transitional elements that cause the songs to feel more streamlined, it’s also the band’s increased focus on crafting memorable songs. In order to adhere to the band’s pop direction, the songs don’t feature many raging screams or aggressive moments and also aren’t prone to random changes in direction. This focus on making every song very listener friendly may cause initial disappointment among longtime fans but the screams, creative songwriting, and the band’s quirky personality are still intact – albeit in a subtler capacity....full text |
| Spin |
| Lead screamer Bert McCracken already called this Utah emo-metal outfit’s fourth album a concept piece about “hating yourself,” so there’s zero mystery in his snot-nosed enunciations of sorrow and bloodletting. The Used’s call-and-response choruses seem to exist solely to make palatable some of the most loathsome mixed metaphors about loathing ever recorded (this album’s finest: “I’ll be your loaded gun waiting to come undone”). Turgid even for the genre, Artwork will make you hate yourself for singing along with tricky standouts like “Empty With You.”...full text |
| Absolutepunk |
| The Used could possibly be the biggest post-hardcore band of the past decade, and if they aren’t already, they will be with this record. Frontman Bert McCraken described the new songs as “…10 times messier and noisier than they've ever been." My expectations skyrocketed when the first single “Blood on My Hands” was released. With a heart-pumping beat, this song speaks as a summary for the album as a whole. If the actual meaning of the song is shown in the video, it’s actually deeper than just saying “Oh, look there’s blood on my hands”. The video depicts the lead singer becoming obsessed with a serial killer, hunting him down, killing him, getting convicted of his crimes, and being hung. A great start to the album. With the next couple tracks they express a feeling of sadness, anger, and regret that can be heard throughout the record. The second song, “Empty With You”, has a peculiar pop intro but then launches itself into a medium-paced love song. So far, this is a big fan favorite. On “Kissing You Goodbye” there is a true sadness that can’t be met my any other song released before, with lyrics like “leave me with your complications. Take your life, you feel like taking mine. Meeting god we stand in line, not alone,” and “No, where to go, I'm not leaving, not going, I'm not kissing you goodbye. On my own, I'm nothing, just bleeding. I'm not kissing you goodbye.” After this, the mood quickly turns from sadness to anger with “On The Cross” and “Watered Down,” which feature excerpts from Khallid Muhammad’s famous black supremacy speeches. That definitely adds fuel to the fire on these tracks. “Get out of town by sundown. I say if they don’t get out of town, we kill the men, we kill the women, we kill the children, we kill the babies, we kill the blind, we kill the crippled, we kill the crazy, we kill the ******s, we kill the lesbians, I say Goddamnit we kill them all.”...full text |
The Used lyrics
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