Essentially skate punk for geeks, EMO has given every loser with a guitar a chance to vent their woes. Which could explain why it's the one US rock phenomenon yet to make a significant impact this side of the Atlantic - for every Jimmy Eat World there's an army of downtrodden wimps whining to half-hearted garage riffs.
Thankfully, the third album from New Jersey's Saves The Day proves that, given enough wit, bile and teen movie choruses, wallowing in self-pity can be truly exhilarating. If, instead of running around naked and sniggering at farts, Blink 182 were sensitive souls with a PhD in snide comments, who spent their days nursing broken hearts and plotting the downfall of their high school tormentors, undoubtedly 'Stay What You Are' is the album they would make.
At its most simplistic, it's a heads down tear through EMO's specialist subjects (love, heartbreak and being useless with girls) with insidious tunes and an above average IQ. 'Certain Tragedy' poetically charts the bitter end of a relationship to an inanely grinning chug that would scream elation were it not for all the references to choking. Unrequited love is relived through the surging misery of 'Jukebox Breakdown' and 'Nightingale'; both of which come with desperate optimism and dismal odds. As does the reggae lilting 'Freakish', their solid gold anthem for the lovelorn with its tragically rousing refrain: "Well here I am, I don't know how to say this, the only thing I know is awkward silence."
But it's hate, not love, that really brings the best out of singer Chris Conley and puts a swaggering into Saves The Day's lo-fi romps. Sneering smugly, the 4/4 thud of 'Cars & Calories' takes shameless delight in the disintegration of the prom queen's perfect life; gleefully recounting her parents extra marital affairs and divorce. Better still, 'At Your Funeral' plays like an ode to a dead friend, but on closer listening is about murdering a former persecutor, while 'As Your Ghost Takes Flight' seeks revenge via slow torture involving hammers, nails and "bottles to catch your blood."
The upbeat charge of their macabre tales assures they're only joking. The venom and spite with which they tell them says quite the opposite. Either way, with the crowd surfing choruses making them as invigorating as they are disturbing/funny, Saves The Day finally make good EMO's ultimate goal of turning all those years of humiliation and hurt on their head, to sound like genuine rock'n'roll heroes.
