College Times

Issue date: 4/24/08 Section: Music

Media Credit: Bryan Sheffield

No one can deny Story of the Year's eternally-optimistic aspirations. In their third studio album, the St. Louis five-piece manages to speak out against American military involvement abroad, encourage self-discovery and denounce violence rather frankly. Unfortunately, they lack both the musical chops and song-writing ability to change the world the world any time soon, let alone put together an album devoid of the predictabilities of the "screamo" genre.

If music can really heal the world's woes, it's highly-doubtful that humdrum power-chords, screaming and lyrics that resemble high school notebook fodder will be the vehicle to do so.

The majority of The Black Swan's tracks sound as if lead singer Dan Marsala turned on CNN for the first time and drew up an Iraqi exit strategy in the back of an algebra book during study hall.

From the George W. Bush sound bites in the opening and most scream-laden track, "Choose Your Fate" to the concluding "Welcome to our New War", the band strings together an impressively long list of clichéd ways to say "war is bad."

But the band's solution for all of America's problems - sheer, unabashed optimism - is even more harrowing.

In the vomitrociously hopeful "Wake Up", Marsala proclaims, "We are alive for a moment, one second in the great abyss of time. All the bleeding, all the hate, just one blink of an eye."

And in subtly-titled "The Antidote", when Marsala belts, "All we need is a reason, all we need is right here inside us all," one can't help but be thankful that these guys aren't in charge, after all.

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