I have never heard an album quite like this. I received it as a birthday present from my good friend Dan who likes a good bit of hardcore…so when I first got it as grateful as I was, I was also worried I wouldn’t like it. The title worried me a little, as did the free leaflet telling me what I can and cannot do when I am dead, complete with diagrams. Apprehensively, I put the album on and listened to the first track ‘Car Underwater’. I soon realised that the album is a story, each song is a chapter.

The first chapter tells of how a car has plunged underwater, it sounds like suicide, and the thoughts that are running through the victim’s head. The second song ‘The Truth About Heaven’ is exactly that, it is a song about the victim deciding to visit Earth in order to tell his loved one about heaven, “Walked past my grave in the dark tonight, saw the stone and the note you left for me, to answer your question I just had to leave…but that’s not why I’m here, I came down here to tell you it rains in heaven all day long.” The album continues in this fashion and is a little work of inspirational genius. The idea of turning the album into a story is so obvious and yet so clever and it works so well.

As for the music, as I described earlier I was worried by death/blood/hardcore thoughts but it is quite the opposite. The music is upbeat, especially on ‘The Truth About Heaven’, my favourite song on the album. You want to dance…which makes the lyrics seem truly ironic to the mood the music puts you in. ‘A Quick Little Fight’ is the oddest song on the album, it sounds like a Casio keyboard put on the demo tune, which is strangely haunting, almost like a nursery rhyme again with ghostly lyrics, “Can you see me through your bedroom window? Are you waking up your friends to watch with you? Can you see me at all?”

This album has confirmed my love for Armor For Sleep who I have enjoyed since their early days. They’re a band who prove they’re inspirational and talented; a hard feat for post-hardcore nowadays. If you like your pop-rock but are bored of the samey albums around at the moment, give this album a spin and see if you can sleep with your light off tonight.

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