Somewhere between the worlds of pop-punk and melodic hardcore, Flashlight Arcade reside. Only, this is not some bastardization, something you've heard before. Lifetime did it, Hot Water Music did it, and now, on The Art of Blacking Out, the band is able to let go, and truly spread their wings.
Every track is brimming to the top with passion and a great sense of musicianship. The dissonant guitar work and straining vocals work extremely well off each other, and song by song, the songs go farther and farther away from the ability to be pigeonholed into something like punk or hardcore. They waste no time in establishing their brand of music, with the first song showing exactly what kind of music should be expected to come. The clean and distorted guitars contrast well, and the vocals sound incredibly strong but desperate at the very same time. Some moments feel a lot like Texas Is the Reason, and others like early Get Up Kids, but no matter the style, it sounds tight, fluid, but extremely strong.
And each song becomes stronger than the last.
"Homeroom Politics" has incredibly well-layered rhythms that cross back and forth between slow and driving, to a much more quick and schizophrenic approach with some clean guitar. While they work well as a unit, at any given time the music can be picked apart to listen to each individual element. The tight drumming, the heavy bass anchoring it all, and the guitar that keeps the song progressing through whatever ups and downs. They shy away from any sort of verse-chorus formula, and it really couldn't be done any other way on this album. "Outside Providence" is a bouncy track that opens up with some great guitar work that periodically rears its head to remind the listener the level of talent that can be shown. The bulk of the tune is slow, but the wailing vocals offer plenty to hold onto, even when the instrumentation seems pretty basic. As the album progresses, things become a lot more akin to mid-90s emo á la Hoover and Texas Is the Reason, and a lot less Hot Water Music, but in any event, the result is a great one. "So They Don't Like Heroes Around Here" represents the side of the band that sounds like Hot Water Music, and they pull that off extremely well. Their aggressive punk style perfectly fits in the flow of the album as a whole, and it perfectly fits with the slash and burn guitars and shouted vocals.
Finding things to praise is a hell of a lot easier than finding fault in Flashlight Arcade's latest effort, and I can only hope future endeavors will continue in this very same vein.