Minnesota's Four Letter Lie have been a member of the Victory Records roster for a few years now, and their brand of pop/punk/screamo-metal contains plenty of what the youth of today crave as far as aggressive music goes. Mixing intense yet melodic instrumentation with a myriad of vocals styles (melodic, screams, growls, emo), Four Letter Lie keep one foot in the door to modern radio/MTV land, the other firmly entrenched on the mosh pit floor of your local sweaty club hall. There's both good and bad here on What a Terrible Thing to Say-when these guys fire on all cylinders, as they do on the melodic yet crazed "Pretty/Ugly", the crushing hardcore anthem "It's Coming This Way", or the textured & metallic "A Place Called 'Further' ", things really seem to gel. In fact, the band are quite adept at pumping out catchy choruses housed within heavy metalcore arrangements. However, tunes like the title track, "Think Of Your Favorite Place", and "Cake Eater" really offset the overall aggressive nature of the rest of the album, as these songs sound like average everyday radio friendly emo drivel. Thankfully, these tunes are mixed into the middle of the CD, and you get the terrific 1-2 punch that ends things here, the bombastic metal of " I Don't Speak To Dead Men" and the King Crimson-meets-ISIS styled closer " Charlatan", a real post rock/proggy number that is easily the best song on decent but uneven What a Terrible Thing To Say.
Track Listing
1. Cake Eater
2. Nothing But A Ghost
3. pretty/ugly
4. It's Coming This Way
5. What A Terrible Thing To Say
6. Think Of Your Favorite Place
7. A Place Called "Further"
8. Pretend You Never Happend
9. I Don't Speak To Dead Men
10. Charlatan