2008 Woodie Awards
Hawthorne Hieghts Is Good No Matter What Genre It Is
Ben Morrow
Issue date: 4/3/06 Section: Entertainment
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Ben Morrow
Staff Writer
How many emo kids does it take to change a lightbulb? Just one to do it and three more to cry about the bulb that went out. Oh, now that's rough, but it is only a joke. The truth is that the lines that used to unmistakably define rock, metal, and pop have been broken for years, leading the way for a senseless number of subdivisions. Emo, screamo, punk, metalcore, hardcore, soft and hard rock, and of course black, death, math, nu, and thrash metal (to name a few) are some examples of these.
While I know the basic differences and regularly listen to bands in each of these branches, there is nothing more entertaining than a well-rounded album in which the band does not limit themselves to the subtleties of the genre that one person or another might place them in. Hawthorne Heights have been able to do this with what I consider great success.
Getting their start in Dayton, OH, Hawthorne Heights set one goal for themselves and that being to become professional musicians. Booking their own tours at first and doing some self-promotion certainly had an effect on getting this done. Victory Records would then come to usher the quintet into their ranks of successful post-grunge "heavy" bands. The Silence In Black And White was the first album to come out of this contract and carried by relentless touring and the singles "Ohio Is For Lovers" and "Niki FM."
If Only You Were Lonely is the second official release and one that has not succumbed to the "sophomore curse" that, sadly, many bands seem to catch these days. This album takes the "emo" lyrical style, with metaphors and cries of heartache, and has a little bit of the frustrated screaming to accent it. That's not all there is though.
With love being the most basic and strongest emotion a person can feel, there isn't always going to be a downward movement. To write about heartache, there has to be love in the first place, and that is the other aspect that Hawthorne Heights captures really well on this album.
Staff Writer
How many emo kids does it take to change a lightbulb? Just one to do it and three more to cry about the bulb that went out. Oh, now that's rough, but it is only a joke. The truth is that the lines that used to unmistakably define rock, metal, and pop have been broken for years, leading the way for a senseless number of subdivisions. Emo, screamo, punk, metalcore, hardcore, soft and hard rock, and of course black, death, math, nu, and thrash metal (to name a few) are some examples of these.
While I know the basic differences and regularly listen to bands in each of these branches, there is nothing more entertaining than a well-rounded album in which the band does not limit themselves to the subtleties of the genre that one person or another might place them in. Hawthorne Heights have been able to do this with what I consider great success.
Getting their start in Dayton, OH, Hawthorne Heights set one goal for themselves and that being to become professional musicians. Booking their own tours at first and doing some self-promotion certainly had an effect on getting this done. Victory Records would then come to usher the quintet into their ranks of successful post-grunge "heavy" bands. The Silence In Black And White was the first album to come out of this contract and carried by relentless touring and the singles "Ohio Is For Lovers" and "Niki FM."
If Only You Were Lonely is the second official release and one that has not succumbed to the "sophomore curse" that, sadly, many bands seem to catch these days. This album takes the "emo" lyrical style, with metaphors and cries of heartache, and has a little bit of the frustrated screaming to accent it. That's not all there is though.
With love being the most basic and strongest emotion a person can feel, there isn't always going to be a downward movement. To write about heartache, there has to be love in the first place, and that is the other aspect that Hawthorne Heights captures really well on this album.