Over the course of the three minutes and 13 seconds of "Hate Everyone," Max Bemis twists his own words around, evolving from world's greatest self-proclaimed misanthrope into a burgeoning humanist in a few breaths.
This indecisiveness is a running theme in Say Anything's eponymous third album, a hodgepodge of styles and contradictory lyrics.
Of course, this is what the pop punk Roky Erickson and his band have always brought its audience. Much like the bipolar singer's erratic behavior, his music is constantly riding the wave of its catchy pop appeal and its own unpredictability. At any moment, it seems it could all fall apart into an incoherent mess or generic rubbish.
"My hair cannot commit to one popular genre of music," he sings on "Crush'd," an upbeat, synth-infused acoustic rock song. Bemis' musical work, like his always-changing coiffure, is fresh but still accessible and purely confined within pop constructs.
The very same song has its letdowns. Lazy clichés abound. "I have a total crush on you, baby/ and I can't let it go," rings the chorus, making its way to the equally languid conclusion, "Did it hurt when you fell from heaven, girl?"
This is not an isolated incident, and it becomes a problem because of how much the band relies on Bemis' wittily disaffected banter. His musical narratives often introduce characters for a single line and to no effect at all -- the horny bus driver in "Ahhh ... Men," for example. The man has sexual frustration. Get it?
Though the lyrics are occasionally spot on, they constantly revolve around Bemis' former sexual exploits and self-loathing desire for death. It's unfortunate, because he hints at having a deeper understanding of love that he seems too insecure and self-conscious to share with listeners.
Musically, there are things to capture audiences of earbud wearers. Unfortunately, Say Anything is front-heavy, giving up all its treasures during the first half of the record before
falling back on straight-ahead pop/rock elements for the final side.
"Fed to Death" starts the album with a bang. The song goes from a simple acoustic number to hard rock, taking a brief detour at a synth-pop crossover before ending on an equally concise piano-only outro.
But Bemis gets self-conscious halfway through the tune, stopping the song in full swing to give himself a spoken word pick-me-up. For all of the singer's intentionally ironic lyrics, this prideful self-criticism perhaps accidentally beats them all.
"Wait a second," he mutters, "I can't write the same damn song over and over again."
From here, he destroys the completely unique musical idea the band was building in favor for guitar and keyboard rock 'n' roll.
The rest of the album plays out the same way, showing a band that has run out of ideas halfway in.
"Say Anything" is more focused than 2007's jumbled "In Defense of the Genre," but it's almost too much so. The group seems to be circling back and forth between high ambition and generic lows, almost taking the lyrics "Do Better" to heart: "We could do better, we could be the greatest band in the world."
Grade: C+
Download: "Less Cute"
