On November 3rd, Say Anything’s new self-titled album hit the stores. In their fourth album, it finally feels like the band is comfortable in their own skin.
   At glance at the first two song titles – “Fed to Death” and “Hate Everyone” –  may give you the impression that Say Anything is just another emo-band complaining about this and that. But don’t let them fool you.
   Yeah, the song titles and the lyrics can seem apathetic at times, but the band, specifically the forerunner Max Bemis, is poking fun at those excessively emotional bands if anything. That’s their thing – they bring a biting ironic tone to their music and lyrics. The track “Crush’d” satirizes everyone from Justin Timberlake to Lil’ Wayne, while “Mara and Me” directly jabs at the Kings of Leon for writing songs about girls.
   So what makes this new album any different than the previous two-disc In Defense of the Genre and Is a Real Boy…? It’s still a dark album, but it has more of a positive spin on it. The songs are definitely catchy. You’ll want to sing along, even dance, and some of them like “Do Better” are bound to get stuck in your head for days.
   The record explodes with the gnarled, chunky chords of its fierce opener “Fed to Death,” defining the band’s crusade against skepticism. The Clash meets Queen single “Hate Everyone” captures the first stage of personal renewal – waking up on the wrong side of the bed. “Less Cute” is a sardonically upbeat anthem for anyone on the rebound.
   Then comes the deep, gritty “Eloise,” one of those songs that can really cut to the core of you with everything from the beat to the lyrics. The song tells the story of a relationship that one can’t simply move on from. The band’s deliberate scrutiny in reflective aspects such as this creates an album with integrity.
   Considering this album as Bemis’ spiritual awakening, the track “Cemetery” was inevitable. With raw guitar, tender lyrics, and an appearance from Bemis’s wife Sherri DuPree from the band Eisley, this song is one to remember. The proverbial hooks keep coming all the way to an epic resolution, the “Hey Jude” meets punk hymnal “Ahhh… Men.” This record is bound to tell your story in one way or an-other: it is both a strange ro-mantic epic and a call to arms.
Say Anything realizes there are vices to fight: society eat-ing itself, the influence of a corporate controlling power, the death of true morality or even one person feeling their will to live slip away. This album is a weapon for that fight and they undoubtedly want you enlisted, laughing like a lunatic and dancing all the way.