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I can honestly tell you that going into this review, I had never head anything from "The Things They Carried", and had absolutely no idea what I was getting myself into. I had read their press kit, and thought that I was as ready as I was going to be to give the new album There's Something I Can't Tell Anyone a good listen through. I was wrong, I was not ready for it at all and it threw me completely off!

Here's the kicker: I was not ready for how awesomely killer the very first track to the record would be! The Rationality of Failure kicks the album off with pounding guitars, spine-shattering drums, gut-wrenching screaming and anthemic melodies. I will be the first to tell you that this type of music is not my go-to style. In fact, 90% of the music I listen to is the complete opposite of this, but the second that the first track started playing, I was hooked! The album kept up pace moving into the second track 364 Day Anniversary, a song that kept me guessing the entire time as it traveled through punctuated screams to an almost carnival-style hook and a beautifully melody bridge.

Track three (Less Fun Than Being Dead) is my favorite of the album, a song that almost reminds me of a hardcore "Forgive Durden" song, which sounds really strange to say out loud, but if you give it a listen you very well may just hear what I hear in it. The Things They Carried blends deep guttural screaming with the higher-pitched "screamo" style of screaming and melodies that are extremely interesting and seem like they wouldn't work within the confines of each song, but are somehow flawlessly incorporated to create auditorily intricate songs that I can honestly say I did not expect in the slightest! Mosely (track four) is a prime example of what I mean. When you isolate the melody of the song and hum it to yourself outside of the context of the song it just does not seem like a melody that would fit with pounding drums, power-riffs and screaming, and yet when it's all mixed together, it creates a stunning effect.

I can honestly say that there isn't one single song on the album that I don't like! It starts strong, and finishes strong, and every single track in-between is fantastic. The problem that I sometimes run into when listening to these harder scream-oriented bands is that I find it difficult to differentiate between songs, and they all start to blend together and sound exactly the same to me, but The Things They Carried manages to make each song completely unique and keep the listening entertained and enraptured from the very first note to the final haunting second in the last track Memoriam.

Mark me down solidly in the "fan" category, I am absolutely sold on The Things They Carried, and if I had a wider reference of hardcore music to give you a comparison to bands you might associate with them, I'd give them to you, but I really don't, so instead, I will direct you to their Facebook Page and tell you to go give them a listen for yourself and see what you think!

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