The Weekend: Friday

If you are the type to judge a book by its cover, Forever the Sickest Kids' 2009 release The Weekend: Friday (which is the first in a series of three weekend-themed EPs) would have you believe that the band were a rooster-haired, wackily dressed bunch of fun-loving teenage knuckleheads. You'd be half right. Their hair is indeed pretty OTT, and the sartorial style they seem to be aiming for is an explosion at Hot Topic, but the songs on the record reveal some serious heartbreak and melancholy. Sure, they are wrapped in blindingly bright arrangements with highly processed guitars, Auto-Tuned vocals, and big singalong harmonies, and there are big hooks and cheerful melodies to spare, but lyrically, it sounds like it may end up being a pretty lonely weekend. Singer Jonathan Cook has been dumped, treated like dirt, and dragged around by the heart, and he's not afraid to explain it all in detail. It’s totally teenage and about as deep as a mud puddle, but it works somehow. The enthusiasm of the band and Cook, the hermetically sealed production techniques, and the overall catchiness of the tunes give the band and the EP a boost that helps them stay afloat in the still-rising tide of emo-pop bands in the late 2000s. It also helps that any one of the five tracks on the record would sound almost perfect on the radio. The rest of the weekend will be a good one for fans of Day-Glo emo-pop.

by Tim Sendra