In Love and Death
The Used are especially convincing when they sound impatient on In Love and Death. Take It Away gets the album moving with hard guitars and a vocal that keeps changing shape under pressure. Bert McCracken can make a straightforward chorus feel volatile, and the band give him an arrangement with enough force to match.
I Caught Fire is just as immediate, although its feeling is warmer. The guitar progression moves cleanly towards the hook, and McCracken's voice gives the song a useful rough edge. These opening tracks show how well the band can combine accessible writing with an unsettled performance.
The album becomes less consistent when it slows down. All That I've Got has a strong melody and a clear emotional centre, but some of the surrounding material relies on a familiar contrast between soft passages and large declarations. The feeling is easy to understand, while the musical journey towards it can be less revealing.
The drums help keep those quieter songs active. They find small ways to alter the movement beneath the singing, providing detail when the guitars are more concerned with supporting the tune. McCracken also remains an effective presence even when a lyric is broad. His changes of emphasis can make a line feel more complicated than its wording.
Sound Effects and Overdramatics is a welcome return to the sharper attack. The title suits a performance that treats abrupt changes and raw vocals as useful musical material. Here, the band's intensity feels connected to the structure, rather than added to a conventional song for extra effect.
The closing I'm a Fake has plenty of energy, though its repeated self-accusation becomes less interesting as it continues. That tension runs through the record: strong delivery sometimes has to compensate for writing that states its problem too often. In Love and Death contains several excellent songs and a capable band behind them. It is most rewarding when the performance turns an emotion into movement, giving the listener more than another emphatic declaration of pain.
