I'll start off this review by saying; I liked Finch's first album, What It Is To Burn. That is... until I heard Say Hello To Sunshine.

I owned Say Hello To Sunshine for a few months without even listening to the album's entirety until one day I decided to give it an uninterrupted, attentive listen. To this day (about two-and-a-half years later) I have never gone back to their pop-emo style of What It Is To Burn. Yeah, that album was catchy but I no longer cared because their new stuff was a giant leap off of a skyscraper in a flaming monster truck from the old. Instead of wanting to tap my foot and sway, their new CD made me want to punch through walls and scream in the face of random strangers.

It doesn't take long to know you're getting a completely different style with Say Hello To Sunshine. The music is heavier and granular, there's a scream around every corner and the lyrics paint abstract pictures with bloodthirsty irrationality. Lyrically, Nate Barcalow has evolved tremendously by seemingly giving his lyrics notional qualities much like The Mars Volta or R.E.M. But, even though you have no clue what Barcalow is saying there are pungent aromas of frustration, violence and the need for salvation seeping from his straining vocal chords. It's this frustration that gives the album depth where it would otherwise be lacking.

However, the lyrics alone don't make the album. The guitars' ability to duel the short snare snaps and cymbal clashes give this album the same amount of rhythm and catchiness of their first record — it's just been given some adrenaline and a rusty knife.

I spent the last two-and-a-half years loving this album and reveling about how they couldn't have asked for a better way to end their career as Finch (yes, they broke up). But, alas, that time is over as recently it has been announced that their new album is in the making (yes, they're back together). Although nothing has yet to be officially released from their new endeavors I'm positive it will be nothing like Say Hello To Sunshine thus, not peaking my interest. This album just seems like something you couldn't create twice — at least by a band of this nature... no offense.