Front man, Tyson Ritter is known for his fluctuating style that can cruise up and down any scale to an All American Reject track in seconds.
But what is the band really known for are their ‘fadings’ and ‘bleedings’—wordplays found in every goth high school-ers dictionary for dark emo poetry. With such vocabulary, listeners might start to wonder if AAR actually ever really broadened their thesaurus.
Or, did it just peek during their high school days along with the rest of their high school fans.
Anthems on Album are Slightly More Mature
A lot of emoting is evident in their latest When the World Comes Down especially in the changes of modulation through Ritter’s singing. The anthems on this album definitely will make fans reminisce of something ‘oh so high school’.
In their latest boy-breakup soundtrack, it seems they have graduated from their HS status and have found themselves belting out lyrics that have moved on a little higher in the education totem pole. In this case: college-dorm-aesthetics.
Freshmen Versus Junior Album
Their best known single ‘Swing Swing Swing’, off their freshman album, opens with an organ prologue and the grand ripplage of electric guitar, an all-star Phantom of the Opera extravaganza.
With such tracks such as “Wind Blows” off their latest, When the World Comes Down, AAR seems to be paying homage to an older era. The track, a breezy rendition to Berlin’s ‘Take my Breath Away’ is a perfect remake of an 80’s classic, showing AAR has matured enough in their sound to be inspired by an older classic.
AAR’s Latest is Overtly Melodramatic
Gives you Hell’ and ‘I Wanna’ are hyper songs that just make you want to get up and dance. Other tracks such as ¨Real World¨ with its emo lyrics give AAR’s latest album a trying listen. The upbeat catharsis without the redundant emo-sceam-o quality gets kinda loud and annoying after a while.
Overall, one can’t help but feel a bit overwhelmed from the nearly epic portions of theatrics in AAR’s latest. Ritters voice certainly screams of drama and Broadway musical productions. But at the same time the upbeatedness of these tracks definitely give fans something to party about—which can’t be such a downer after all.
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