A LITTLE TRUTH IN EVERY JOKE

Reggie And The Full Effect  Last Stop: Crappy Town Vagrant Records Release Date: June 17, 2008 As the self-proclaimed "biggest Reggie fan in the world", I was absolutely ecstatic to learn of a new album just about the same time I had assumed the band was over. I had heard that singer-songwriter-instrumentalist James Dewess had been through a roller-coaster ride of a personal life over the last few years- getting divorced, playing in different bands, deleting Reggie’s MySpace page, etc. All in all, details surrounding a fifth release sounded a bit sketchy and I had no idea what to possibly expect. Dewess lets it all out, and fills us all in, on what is easily the darkest, most personal Reggie And The Full Effect album to date, the sarcastically titled, Last Stop: Crappy Town. Gone are all the melodic, catchy dance beats and fun alter-egos of past albums, for the most part replaced by angry lyrics, hard guitar riffs, and death metal screaming. There are a few songs that remind you of why you probably enjoy Reggie in the first place, such as tracks 2 and 4, when, for a brief moment, the melody goes melodic and you feel as if you are in complete and utter bliss. Dewess has such a beautiful singing voice that it’s almost a shame he opts to scream as much as he does on this record. The album is a logical, harder progression of their previous album, 2005's Songs Not To Get Married To, however the screaming is “real” this time and not just tongue-in-cheek. The fact that there are only two melodic progressions on an album of twelve is quite a shock. On a side note, there is hardly any silence, as all the songs flow from one to the next, which works well with all of the song titles being names of subway exits (ex: "Smith and 9th"and "E", respectively) Hey, Reggie was never one for taking song titles seriously, anyway. Dewess shows us once again that he doesn’t care what anyone else thinks. He never has and never will. This fact is what always separated RATFE from the rest of the predictable pop-punk acts. He’s willing to be honest with himself first, and you, as a listener can choose to either love it or hate it, and either way it’s cool with him. I tried really hard to like this album, but the drastic change from an already extremely original sound left a bad taste in my mouth. As a result, I feel very unsatisfied with the overall direction he’s taking the project. But as even he himself admits on the opening track, “I’m not exactly who I used to be”. 2 out of 5 stars.