Finch

Say Hello To Sunshine (2005)

Bryan

A couple years back, Finch released What It Is To Burn, which sold pretty well due to the single of the same title. I decided to dish out the money on the CD, and it was quite disappointing due to being very generic and repetitive. But, to no surprise, was considered a good CD by many more mainstream magazines. In recent magazine articles, it's even been written that Finch helped establish the screamo scene. This is highly ironic, as there are few screams in that CD, and if they influenced that genre, then there would be no good bands in the screamo genre.

But time to go on with the review. After reading an interview, the band members said they wanted to take Say Hello To Sunshine to a different level, which I thought could be a good thing, if only because they weren't ever really that good. But with little expectations, which is the easiest way to get surprised and like a CD you never thought you would, my expectations where actually quite too high, because this CD is bad. Take that back -- not bad, but very bad.

The opening track on Say Hello To Sunshine is "Insomniatic Meat," and really makes you laugh. The band whose vocalist says he didn't like the shouting on the previous album and wants to get away from that starts their latest CD with a song based around his weak screams. And when "Revelation Song" starts, you realize they did make a change. They made a change into the overfilled generic emo field. They took their music from one level to the next, and they still forgot to bring any musical ability to stand out. Their music is okay at its best parts, but it's still screaming generic. "Brother Bleed Brother" and "Piece Of Mind" sound very similar, and then "Ink" tries to emulate their previous sound and it still doesn't sound really good. The only worthwhile parts of the first five songs carry a little of a Hopesfall A-Types vibe, but they can't even get themselves to sound as good as Hopesfall, and fail to capitalize on that sound.

"Fireflies" has its moments before sinking into its standard boring sound, and then "Hopeless Host" almost gets into a mix of Adema and those nü-metal bands that used to overtake the radio. "Reduced To The Teeth" only continues this nü-metal vibe, but then "A Man Alone" has a strange kind of random music with short screams as vocals that kind of hurts your ears; it is one of the worst songs on the album. "Miro" is another bad song, and "Ravenous" is going back to their old sound that said they wanted to get away from…

"Bitemarks And Bloodstains" has emo written all over, from the song title to the spoken vocals and standard generic emo framework. "The Casket Of Roderic Usher" has a Funeral For A Friend sound and still amazes me as there is more shouting on this album then What It Is To Burn as their singer stated in an article with AP last month that they didn't like the screaming and wanted to avoid it.

"Dreams Of Psilocybin" ends this album in a perfect note. It's a bad song, but it gets an extra point for not being followed by another bad song. Finch have said they want to avoid screaming, but use it more often then previous releases. Finch is really trying to sound like an emo/screamo band, and the problem is they aren't anything special. When you try to make an album in an overcrowded genre and a majority of the music in those genres is either bad or generic, and you can't do anything to stand out except for a single that was on the radio on a previous release and is 3 years old, you know you have problems. There is nothing remarkable about this CD, musically or vocally, and should be avoided like a bad disease.