I actually think this album is really good, which surpirses me. (This is coming from a guy who thought last year's The Black Parade was the worst album of the year.)
Over the course of the record I think I finally got used to the lead singer's voice, even though it can get grating very easily. I like the production, despite the fact that it cleans up what would probably be a rawer sound, mainly becausr it adds glitch and orchestral elements that fill out the mix.
I basically like the rockers on the album (The Ripper, Hospital) a lot more than any track that has any pretentions of being sentimental (Earthquake, With Me Tonight). The one exception to this is the album's proper closer, "Smother Me", which is very open and embarassingly earnest, almost to a fault. I think it shows that Bert McCracken (looked it up, hah!) can actually sing beneath the screaming and annoying pop vocals. But I still prefer the hard rock riffs with occasional electronic bridges to the ballads.
Overall it probably won't make my year-end list, but it's an easy-to-enjoy hard emo record with nice chunky riffs and stupidly bad lyrics. 8/10
