album review ! :3
hawthorne heights - if only you were lonely (2006)
xxherlastwalkxx 11/14/2023
hi! my apologies for such a low quality album cover today. i tend to get stuck with pictures from wikipedia, which for some reason very quite a bit in terms of quality.
this is the second hawthorne heights album, which followed the classic the silence in black and white pretty strongly if i do say so myself. while their first album was more diy-sounding, both in terms of production and songwriting, this one's a little simpler. the production is honestly impeccable, it reminds me of some pretty hard-hitting albums such as silverstein's a shipwreck in the sand. i think the thing about production is that there's really no good or bad, to continue on the silverstein analogy, i think it really says a lot how sloppier production can work so well with the right music (see when broken is easily fixed), even if prettier, more conventional production can really elevate the right music (see shipwreck in the sand). i think it's really easy to hate on "good" production for those who listen to more diy music because sometimes crappy production works really well and sounds awesome. and that's true for a lot of diy music -- that diy aspect is reflected in all of the music, including songwriting, production, performance, even stuff like instrumentation sometimes. what that means in the context of if only you were lonely is that i actually do like the production quite a bit. the simpler sound that hawthorne heights follows on this album, especially thanks to how often they use the typical verse-chorus structure here, benefits a lot from the thicker production, which helps the music sound thicker and more powerful. things like the feedback in the verses of "dead in the water" and the way the guitars harmonize octaves with each other sound really good and the production very much helped. to be honest, i think that a lot of the reason why the production works so well is because there's so little screaming on this album. it allows the clean vocals to stand out more while the instruments still sound powerful.
i keep calling the production "powerful," and i very much mean that when i say it, but to be completely honest the songwriting is a little underwhelming sometimes. this album doesn't have a lot of the crazy moments that make emo so emotionally impactful for me. yes, the music is sad, and the melodies and harmonies are super pretty and emo, but it doesn't have a lot of moments that hit me super hard. when i say this i'm thinking of moments like the part in underoath's "returning empty handed" when spencer screams "the floor is more fitting for my face" with what sounds like all the air he can hold in a single breath. or moments like the crazy drum fill that introduces senses fail's "every day is a struggle." it doesn't even have to be in music. it could (and should!!) be in the lyrics as well. the underoath song i just quoted also applies here, or stuff like bayside's "the walking wounded:" "we're all wounded anyways / in our respective ways" and "scientists, they couldn't fix me / i'm so tired of getting out of bed." i think that the lyrics on if only you were lonely are pretty and there are some cool moments instrumentally but there's not much that i can think of that stands out when compared to the rest of the album. maybe the harmonized guitar lines in the chorus of "saying sorry," but that's about it.
i think that, while this is a very solid emo record, it doesn't do much to make it stand out against other emo albums other than just being a hawthorne heights album lmao. like i guess it stands out in the sense that it is overall a good album, and the majority of any given genre will probably not be super enjoyable, but i wish it did more. idk. it's sad and that's awesome. i guess that's half the appeal of good emo. i'm probably missing the point by analyzing this album so much anyway.
rating: