The Used
The Canyon
Release Date: October 27, 2017
Genre: Alternative Rock
Label: Hopeless Records
The Used's seventh studio album begins with a conversation in a recording room. It's easy to infer that it's vocalist Bert McCracken speaking with guitarist Justin Shekoski. It's clear from minute one of the album what both the tone and subject material will focus on in The Canyon: coping with the loss of a dear friend whose committed suicide. The album starts not with a full-speed scream-filled number, but a bright and warm acoustic track called "For You". McCracken's vocals break throughout as he stifles vocals between tears. This is not a record where emotions are held back or coated with production: this is The Used's most heartfelt and emotionally vulnerable record to date.
If one was to traverse the full discography of the Orem, UT quartet over the years, they would note that this one of the softer pieces of material the band have released in regards to "heaviness". There's a lack of screaming, but it truly doesn't matter. This is not a record that falls into the category of previous Used albums - it's an entirely new world and one that shows the band have grown leaps and bounds since their post-hardcore beginnings in 2002. Recorded over a period of several months with producer Ross Robinson, the band recorded the album to tape, which gave the material an overall warmth that fits the record spectacularly. It should also be noted that The Canyon is a whopping seventeen tracks, coming off more as a cinematic score than a casual album release.
Tracks like "Funeral Post" and "Broken Windows" traverse lyrical territory that shows McCracken being as vulnerable as he's ever been while the band conjure alternative rock instrumentals to accompany every metaphor and deeply-thought out word addressing the nature of coping with a loved one's death. The two singles, "Rise Up Lights" and "Over and Over Again" bring hook-laden choruses into the picture while still retaining a level of seriousness that's previously been unexplored on this level in a Used record.
The Canyon breaks new ground for a treasured band in the alternative rock world, and one that implies that they don't seem to be going anywhere any time soon.
The Canyon Track List
1. For You
2. Cold War Telescreen
3. Broken Windows
4. Rise Up Lights
5. Vertigo Cave
6. Pretty Picture
7. Funeral Post
8. Upper Falls
9. The Divine Absence (This Is Water)
10. Selfies in Aleppo
11. Moving The Mountain (Odysseus Surrenders)
12. Over and Over Again
13. The Quiet War
14. Moon-Dream
15. The Nexus
16. About You (No Songs Left To Sing)
17. The Mouth of the Canyon
This has been another Shameless Promotion.