Boy Sets Fire has been one of my top five favorite bands for some time now. "The Day The Sun Went Out" and "After the Eulogy" are two of my favorite albums of all time. The latter propelled BSF onto Wind-Up, home of everyone's favorite christian cock rockers, Creed. I tried not to let that get to me though, I was happy to see that this bunch of hard working guys get the recognition they so sorely deserved.

So how does a band follow up "After the Eulogy"? It's certainly not an easy task, and unfortunately, on this disk Boy Sets Fire couldn't measure up to the mark they set with their previous work. Something is missing here. The over-production of this album has robbed Boy Sets Fire of their most prized asset: their passion. That's not to say that these songs aren't passionate, but it just isn't conveyed to the listener the same way as it was with their older material. The soaring dual vocal harmonies seem almost uncomfortable and everything has a clean and sterile feel about it. Instead of hearing this and feeling that Nate was singing to you, it sounds mass produced.

There is also a noticeable lack of stand out tracks on here. There are a some good songs(Eviction Article and Bathory's Sainthood come to mind) but generally, everything sounds fairly average. However, this CD did feature the first Boy Sets Fire song that I can honestly I say I can't stand, "Handful of Redemption". This sugary, over-produced, generic song is so sweet that I felt the need to brush my teeth about sixty times after listening to it.

This isn't what I'd call a bad CD, but this is Boy Sets Fire, and they can do much better than this. Perhaps I'm just disappointed because I had such high expectations for this album. Peope have already called this nu-metal, which just isn't true. This is mainly a rock record with some hardcore sensibilities thrown in here and there for good measure. If you're a fan of this band, you've probably already bought this and passed your own judgement, if not you should atleast pick it up for the live DVD. If you're looking to check these guys out, pick up just about any of their older releases before you get this.