Senses Fail

So. I know I said that I was listening to Brand New and that's it's emo and terrible. Now I've moved on to Senses Fail. Well. Moved on? I've sorta really liked them before. I've just "rediscovered" them. I can't decide what CD I like the most. Let it Enfold You is amazing. All the songs are incredible. The guitars swirl, the vocals scream and drums pound out the fury of Buddy Neilsen's anguish. But Still Searching is also a superb album.
Songs that are best? Bonecrusher, Can't Be Saved, Calling All Cars, Shark Attack, To All The Crowded Rooms, All The Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues and Priest and the Matador. Buddy Neilsen is such a tortured person. It's fascinating to get into the mind of such a fucked up person. His lyrics are clever, sorta, but mostly I like how mean he is to woman. It's a feeling of worthlessness and hopelessness that shows through Still Searching especially. Let It Enfold You is more about how violent his relationship is. Priest and the Matador is a really good song. It's pretty obvious its about someone who just gives up and jumps off a building. It's so tortured. I hate using the same word over and over, but that's the only word I can use to describe it. All The Best Cowboys ends with him saying he's going to the top going to count backward from 10 and then jumps. Empty space is a instrumental track when he's falling. Then Priest is him on the ground, dying. The interesting thing about it is that he doesn't redeem himself. He casts the priest away and doesn't want to be helped by the Paramedics. He dies and is still conscious of it. There's almost nothing more depressing than witnessing your own death. And the music just rolls on. He has given up and so have we.
I need to listen to this more. I gave it a listen recently, but nothing really stood out to me. But Still Searching, even though I got it right as it came out, as a junior in high school no less, I think that I didn't like it as much upon first listen. It takes time to process how the guitars move and what Buddy is singing. I've also decided that I need to be in the mindset that Buddy was in when he wrote it. Songs that I think are good?: Family Tradition, Wolves at the Door, Four Years, Map the Streets and Blackout.
I remember this CD fondly. Let's see, Sophomore year of high school. It "embodied my pain" LOL. "I'd rather hurt someone than hurt myself". Then freshman year of college. I feel as though it was the reason that she even started to like me. Because I followed Buddy's advise and didn't give a shit. "I'll leave you like your father did". I can't get the opening guitar riffs of "Tie Her Down" out of my head. They chop, swirl, chop, swirl and embody everything that is good about the album. Songs that are good? Tie Her Down, Lady in the Blue Dress, You're Cute When You Scream, Bury a Lie, Bite to Break Skin, Rum Is For Drinking Not For Burning, NJ Falls Into the Atlantic, and Angela Baker and My Obsession With Fire. But every other one, maybe sans Slow Dance, is also very good.
Then there's this baby. This EP that is so emo that gives Senses Fail they're initial emo cred. Free Fall Without a Parachute and One Eight Seven are the best tracks of the CD, but the Ground Folds and Handguns and Second Chances are also very good. The vocals are a lot more rough and not as melodic as even the next CD. But they carry a lot of power in its delivery. And it's hard to not believe him when he screams "I want to kill you I want to kill you now". And I feel really emo and scene when I fall asleep to the CD. And content.