The Story So Far - What You Don't See Review

Artist: The Story So Far

Album: What You Don't See

Record Label: Pure Noise Records

Release Date: 3/26/13

Every now and then a song or album just happens to hit your ears at the most perfect point in time and space. Affecting you in ways that it just couldn't if it had arrived at any other time. You quickly become obsessed as these pieces of music become personalized and frozen in your memories. Ten years later if you were to put on that album or play that song you’d be instantaneously thrown back to old times. These albums aren't necessarily masterpieces, they just hit us in the right time and place, making them our own personal masterpieces. For myself, The Story So Far’s Under Soil And Dirt is one of those albums. Now you have some insight as to how highly anticipated their follow up to What You Don’t See was for me. Does it live up to the anticipation?

To put it simply the answer is yes.

What You Don’t See is chock full of HUGE choruses, double time pop punk beats, and genuinely introspective lyrics. Gone are the hate filled break up songs, replaced by lyrics that show some serious self-reflection and insight from vocalist Parker Cannon. Lines such as "Blaming the future on the things I fear," in "Playing The Victim" and "Lust I hate it, but I guess it's what you make it," in "Small Talk" show off Cannon's ability to introspect. Instrumentally the band does some interesting things as well. "All Wrong" ends with drummer Ryan Torf setting up the outro to seamlessly flow into "Bad Luck", while "Face Value" has some excellent guitar work from Kevin Geyer and Ryan Levy. Seriously the band collectively breaks it down on Face Value. The production too, is a gargantuan step forward from the sound of Under Soil and Dirt. Go ahead and compare the two albums, everything sounds bigger and better on What You Don’t See.

Brevity is a good word to describe the overall feel of this album. Why the word brevity? Other than a cheeky reference to one of their older songs, brevity means “a concise and exact use of words in speech,” or in this case songwriting. What You Don’t See is an exercise in brevity. There is no filler here and each song has received equal attention. However, this is a shortcoming of What You Don’t See as there is no real variety to the album. Songs seem to blur together on the first few listens before taking shape. Cannon’s voice, while still sounding great, never seems to delve into interesting and uncharted territory for the band, apart from the song “The Glass.” Under Soil and Dirty showed the band playing around with different formulas, like the instrumental outro of “Daughters,” the one-two punch of “States and Minds” and “Roam,” or the mostly acoustic track “Placeholder.” The Story So Far took more chances with Under Soil and Dirt, while definitely choosing  to play it safe with What You Don’t See. This pays off for the most part, but does nothing to increase the longevity and replay ability of the album.

What You Don’t See is an excellent follow up for The Story So Far and proves the band is able to create yet another great pop punk album. However, The Story So Far shouldn't be afraid to add some extra spice to their blend of pop punk.

Score

85/100