My triumphant return to reviews. How I have missed the onslaught of punctuation errors and spelling catastrophes. How dare them? Don't they know how to mask their lack of musical knowledge with high flatulency?

Alas.

In early November, a young man of twenty years of age was passing through town and with a stroke of brillliance and luck, this young man, Ryan Hale, opened up for St. Louis' favorites psuedo emo band, More Like Winter, at legendary Cicero's, starting venue for Ani Difranco, Beck and Sunny Day Real Estate.

Hale climbed on the stage with his acoustic guitar and Coca Cola and continued to chew his gum in the back corner of his mouth throughout his seven song set. He had seemed to master what those struggling in open mic coffee shops lack and took pride in his earthy tenor while others toil and strain for the desired Saves The Day meets Alkaline Trio yelp.

As lucky as those in attendance were to hear the concentrated efforts of drop d acoustic guitar and lyrical repition of "afternoon," and "I swear," as was I to find myself in possesion of his EP, "A Year Will Come And Save Me."

Performing live captured Hale's intimacy and perserving the overall detail of the songwriting. Such is evident on the five song CDep. The addition of a well used drum machine and much needed low end comes together almost symphonically. The crash of the studio cymbals prove annoying by the third song and the bass strings buzz showing the amateur quality of the recording. Hale shines through the imperfections and does the "wimpy acoustic" genre much justice. Impossible for intensity to shine through clean cut pop songs? Prove yourself wrong and track down a copy of this EP.

Yeah, yeah. Okay. Hold on!

This girl I'm dating wants me to say that girls will really like it and the lyrics are really cute and Ryan is pretty good looking and shutup if you don't like it because everybody likes it even Kyle and he likes The Icarus Line and The Locust.

Thanks Katie.

Ryan Hale is planning on shopping labels with his upcoming release and he should have no problem making it on TRL or whatever.