| Allmusic |
 Clocking in at 46 minutes -- nearly half the running time of 2007's In Defense of the Genre -- Say Anything's fourth album is both trim and tuneful, with Max Bemis devoting more focus than ever to the tightening of his quirky, unchained pop songs. "Focus" is a relative term, of course; the frontman still finds time to run wild throughout this disc, rearranging conventional song structures like Picasso and sampling from multiple genres -- emo, rock, punk-pop, R&B, even doo wop -- with greedy glee. The choruses boast stronger hooks this time around, though, which lends heft to Say Anything's musical mish-mash, and the band's willingness to break rules is what makes this album so refreshing. Arriving at the tail-end of 2009, a year in which most emo-pop was compressed, polished, and wholly indebted to Top 40 radio, Say Anything is as unpredictable as they come, boasting 13 tracks that sound dangerous and delicious at the same time. "There are babies with guns beheading their friends in shopping malls around the world, yet somehow the Kings of Leon still have time to write songs about girls," Bemis sing at the beginning of "Mara and Me," adding "I don't suck much less" in a guttural scream. It's this combination of self-loathing and pop culture critique that fuels most of the album, and Bemis distances himself from his contemporaries by briefly embracing their tricks -- the palm-muted guitar chords, the "whoa oh oh" background vocals, the dramatic delivery -- before turning them on their heads, whether that means adding pizzicato strings to "Do Better" or circus-styled keyboard to the aforementioned "Mara and Me." This is an impulsive album, an odd piece of work that manages to be puzzling without alienating the listener....full text |
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| Popmatters |
Max Bemis is currently fronting the most important emo-rock band working today. Also, Max Bemis is a liar.
When the problem-plagued Bemis unleashed his debut album ... Is a Real Boy in 2004, the members of the Alternative Press nation took a step back and asked a very simple question: who the hell was this guy? Say Anything—Bemis’ long-standing band with only one prior album to their credit (2001’s Baseball, which Bemis has all but disowned)—didn’t play by genre conventions in the least. Co-produced with Hedwig & the Angry Inch composer Stephen Trask, Real Boy was a dynamic, powerful album that was as witty and cynical as it was heartfelt and horny, Bemis frequently messing with song structure and time signature changes to make this abandoned-musical of an album something that was much more potent than the work of his peers, and—indeed—far more interesting. Even though Bemis wasn’t posting My Chemical Romance-sized sales numbers, he quickly developed a loyal fanbase and bundles of critical acclaim. There were few bands out there that could pen a song like “Admit It!!!”—which was a scathing spoken-word attack on the very hipster audience who could potentially buy a Say Anything album—and actually live to tell the tale.
With kudos and encouragement all around, Bemis upped the ante for his follow-up album, hooking up with Liz Phair/Sunny Day Real Estate producer Brad Wood to create a sprawling, guest-filled, two-disc master thesis called In Defense of the Genre. But even with more than two dozen brand-new songs and vocal cameos from Gerard Way, Paramore’s Haley Williams, and Dashboard Confessional’s Chris Carrabba, Defense was a frightfully muddled affair, alternating between pissed-off love songs and intriguing musical experiments (a Broadway musical one moment, a dance-rock hybrid the next) without much rhyme or reason. The through-line that drove Real Boy home was no longer visible, and even though Bemis’ worst songs could still run circles around those of his tour mates, In Defense of the Genre didn’t do a lot to defend much of anything—it was just another Say Anything album....full text |
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| Spin |
| "I can't define myself through irony and self-deprecation," Max Bemis sings on "Mara and Me," a wonderful spazz-pop waltz from his band's latest album. Oh, sure you can, dude. Say Anything's fourth full-length is an exercise in acute self-awareness: The pop-punk hookfest "Hate Everyone" satirizes misanthropy while bathing in it, and the earnest electro-pop love ballad "Crush'd" cops to dyslexia, "mild manorexia," and "a disturbing Oedipal complex." The music doesn't always keep up with Bemis' self-absorbed lyrical jujitsu, but there's definite charm in the struggle....full text |
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