Record Review: Boy Sets Fire smolders in 'Misery'

Boy Sets Fire
The Misery Index: Notes from the Plague Years
(Equal Vision Records, 2006)

Emerging from more than four years of shameful sell-out pop-core releases on the major label Wind-Up Records, dubiously self-proclaimed Communist hardcore outfit Boy Sets Fire does little to redeem their shattered reputation on this new Equal Vision release. In with a whimper over a faux dramatic, crunchy-acoustic intro, Nathan Gray pleas lazily in tenor-1 whining for some unnamed political action toward “freedom” to take place. It’s not until the Mike-Patton-esque squawking on Final Communiqué kicks in does it occur to me that this is not another Wind-Up release: but even as Nathan’s screamo vocals take a vicious left turn toward post-coredom, the track leaves much to be desired musically. Heavily post-produced with swooping vocal overlays, the affected, stop-start rhythm is simply not enough to bring the album to fruition. 

It further breaks my heart that two minutes of the record feature an over-polished rehashing of Still Waiting for the Punchline, which, in its original form on After the Eulogy, was one of the face-clawing, chest-thumping emo-core anthems that defined BSF. Rather than evoking nostalgia, however, it comes across as a cheap way of saying, “Remember us?”

BSF’s shapeless, damn-The-Man socio-political agenda has not matured along with the band’s erstwhile pit dwellers, who are now checking “25-34” as their age range on the customer service survey at Crate & Barrel. Whereas most post-core bands that matured in the late '90s have either evolved with their ageing contingent, begun catering to a new audience, or simply broke the hell up, BSF keeps drudging forward with a sound so uninspired and predicable that I can’t help but wish that they had let 2000’s After the Eulogy serve as an aptly metaphoric close to a brilliant-although-brief hardcore career.

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Chris is a digital media entrepreneur and the founding editor of VoidMagazine.com. He is an ageing hardcore kid and knows it, but that doesn't stop him from wearing black T's and sweatbands. He likes a wide range of music, and has an opinion on just about everything. Read more here.