Love Me Destroyer, The Things Around Us Burn

Love Me Destroyer, a four-piece from Colorado, fall somewhere between Jawbox and Braid, with a little thrash thrown in. On The Things Around Us Burn, the songs are mostly protest music in the style of Guy Pizzicato, with a few love songs here and there. The band comes up with lots of menacing lead guitar parts; they’ve got the occasional wanky moment, but also throw in some good moments, too.

They’re good at coming up with interesting details to decorate the songs. During the chorus of “Choked and Charmed,” the lead part has strange-sounding harmonics that are really wild. On “F.U.I.Q.,” the singers trade off vocals, which adds to the song. The rhythm guitar riff on “Color of the Grave” is simple but effective, and the way the singers alternate between singing melody and harmony vocals at the end is really cool.

Unfortunately, more of these moments do come off as wanky. “Bleed It Now” has some doubled lead guitars that lean towards the pop side of metal, while the guitars and melodies on “I Went to Las Vegas and “Kiss and Tell” smell strongly of hairspray, even with the guys shouting the whole time. “You’ll Never Take Me Alive” has some doubled vocals and “oooh’s,” which may have been meant to be fun but are just annoying. To Love Me Destroyer’s credit, they do keep the wankier stuff towards the second half of the album, but since that’s also where most of the best songs are, it makes their judgement seem less sound.

There are some solid songs here, mind you — “Color of the Grave,” “You’ll Never Take Me Alive,” and “F.U.I.Q” are all strong songs all the way around. And even the ones that aren’t as good still have some interesting details, whether good or bad. Love Me Destroyer is definintely a band with some potential. If they can come up with better songs to add their interesting details to, they’ll have something solid.