Music Review: The Used - Shallow Believer

This is coming, honestly, rather late. Shallow Believer has been out for quite a while, but I only just gave it a listen this morning because after the schizophrenic disappointment that Lies for the Liars was, I didn't really feel like subjecting my ears to more torture -- the b-sides. And The Used used to be one of my favorite bands.

It seems that frontman Bert McCracken fell in love and forgot how to write songs. Even In Love and Death, which most critics absolutely hate, sounds better than Lies. Lies was disappointing. I waited for quite a long time and was presented with an album of only semi-decent songs. A few are quite enjoyable, classic-Used sounding, but there are a few songs, like "Wake the Dead," that had so much potential and then... got lost. All of a sudden, in the middle of the song, I'm in the bridge of a completely different song. It almost felt like McCracken's little notebook of lyrics was shredded by a knife-wielding serial killer and pasted back together by a toddler, and Allman and Howard did all they could to deal with all the different shifts. Can you see why I was so reluctant to listen to an entire album of the b-sides from this album?

Shallow Believer suffers equally from McCracken's mental-song-writing-lapse. All of the bonus tracks from the five or so different versions of Lies are there (whoever thought THAT was a good idea? I'll just download the individual songs on iTunes rather than hunt down the Best Buy version, the Target version etc etc.). Accompanying the bonus tracks is "Choke Me," which was a bonus track on The Used's first album, so if you have that, and are willing to fast-forward the last song to the 8:40 mark or so, you can listen to "Choke Me" (which I actually like, it's got some nice signature McCracken screams and the harder side of The Used) without having to pay for Shallow Believer or sit through "Tunnel," which is one of the worst songs written by McCracken -- ever (*cough*sappy*cough).

Really, The Used should stick to their strong points and give fans more of the good stuff. Leave the ballads to Bon Jovi ::shudder::.