It's actually pretty amazing how the career paths of The Early November and Further Seems Forever connect to each other. Band with a very popular early 2000's emo record (Further Seems Forever's The Moon is Down and The Early November's The Room is Too Cold), breaks up in the mid-2000's. Both band's primary singer goes on to have an expansive solo/side project career (Chris Carraba forming Dashboard Confessional and Ace Enders' A million Different People and I Can Make A Mess Like Nobody's Business) before reuniting the band and signing to Rise Records to release their reunion record (The Early November's In Currents and now Further Seems Forever's Penny Black). In Currents was a massive success for The Early November, so how does Penny Black stand up against it?
The album kicks off with "So Cold" which we have already spoken about on this blog. The track, the first single released from the album, is as clear a statement of what to expect from this album as any. The soaring chorus is one of the year's best. But the tracks that follow it are just as impressive, including "Rescue Trained," which features Carrabba straining his voice even more than on "So Cold", and "Kings Canyon" which has one of the album's most infectious melodies. Penny Black is really Carrabba's best vocal performance since A Mark, A Mission, A Brand, A Scar.
While the tracks in the middle of the album, "Staring Down the Sun" and "A System of Symmetry" seem to be Further Seems Forever experimenting with different kinds of sounds for them, but they aren't particularly successful with this experimentation. The production on the former is especially distracting, as the high vocals Carrabba sings in the chorus don't sound natural at all, and even if they were natural the melody just isn't one of his best. These two tracks just fail to build on the success of the first four. Luckily the album gets back on track with the title track (fitting isn't it) and the album will build upon the title track and gather a huge head of steam
This is never more clear than on "Engines," which is without a doubt the album's highlight. The brief blast of energy provided in this track is something that must be heard to be believed. The guitar licks of Josh Colbert and Nick Dominguez echo Carrabba's melody as he sings one of the album's most poignant lyrics, "I've got a cut that wont close, a secret so safe we both know, a covenant made with my soul, I've got a cut that won't close." The song concludes with Carrabba, screaming that final line, "I got a cut that won't close" over top of an all-out aural assault.
The album's penultimate track, "Stem The Loss," which begins with a massive drum fill courtesy of Steve Kleisath, has an intensity bubbling that almost matchs "Engine." The track, which features Carrabba singing, "We better believe in something now," feels like a call to action. The songs keeps the momentum of the back half of the album going straight into album closer "Janie"
While"Janie" keeps this streak of good songs at the end of the album alive, the acoustic album closer seems like too predictable a finish to the album. I would've like to see the band jump outside of their comfort zone a bit and make a long, versatile album closer in the that Anberlin is so constantly able pull off. Unfortunately, Further Seems Forever doesn't seem to be a band that is comfortable with putting out a track longer than 4 minutes.
Bottom Line- The album highlights ("So Cold", "Engines", "On The Outside") are extremely bright, but Penny Black feels like it falls just short of being a consistent album. As it stands, Penny Black is still a fantastic release from a band that the scene is very lucky to have back. While the album is a sure fire top 10 release, if all the songs were as good as the highlights, this would be a very possibly be an Album of the Year candidate.
Recommended if you Rock: Dashboard Confessional, The Early November, Acceptance
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