Boy Sets Fire "The Misery Index: Notes From the Plague Years" (Equal Vision)
By
Monday. Jun 19, 11:28 AM
Good, but not quite as authentic as the vintage material.

You've got to hand it to Boy Sets Fire. After falling prey to the major label dilemma that plagues so many mainstream punk rock bands, the Delaware quintet have – with The Misery Index: Notes From the Plague Years – sent a resounding "fuck you" to the rest of the music industry by not only returning to a more grassroots label, but by attempting to recapture the sound that won them fans in the first place.

After the Eulogy was that rare gem of near-perfection: a record that captured the sound of a group of good friends reaching their peak as musicians, blending a unique mix of hardcore and emo behind biting lyrics lamenting the state of political affairs in the Western world. In the wake of its success, a deal with Wind-Up soon followed, but Tomorrow Come Today saw a marked departure from the emocore sound that had set After the Eulogy apart from the mainstrean politipunk scene. While the album attracted a disconcertingly nü metal following, it more importantly isolated Boy Sets Fire's grassroots fans. It was a betrayal: how could a band with a mantra of “vive la revolution,” who prided themselves so on their outspoken political views, see such a move as anything less than a complete and utter sellout?

Thankfully, the band learned from their error. Vocalist Nathan Gray has since come out and admitted that Tomorrow Come Today was a disappointment and that the Wind-Up deal was a mistake. While the press release accompanying the new record stops just short of completely ripping apart Wind-Up, it does go out of its way to sardonically appropriate the label to a pair of “itchy underwear.”

But enough about business. How's the new record?

Well, there's good news and there's bad news.

The good news is that the nü metal riffs are gone. It's clear that Boy Sets Fire have made a concerted effort to return to their older body of work – not just After the Eulogy, but also the multitude of demos and EPs that came before it, as well as an early full-length titled The Day the Sun Went Out – and reproduced a sound truer to their roots as a band. But the bad news is that the new album doesn't vibrate with quite the same electricity as After the Eulogy did: if that was the culmination of a lifetime of work, this is an anti-climax. While the music is good, it's simply unremarkable. The revolutionary ideas are still there, but they no longer feel like the brainchildren of a bunch of idealistic kids: now they are the recycled complaints of a bunch of guys who have been through the ropes a bit, slightly more cynical and a little less hopeful as they as they strain to return to a place of uncompromised artistic integrity.

This is a valiant effort and a distinctly listenable album, but unfortunately The Misery Index… feels a little bit more forced and not quite as authentic as vintage Boy Sets Fire.
www.boysetsfire.org
www.equalvision.com

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Simon Neuwelt-Broder

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