Finch – Say Hello To Sunshine

Everyone always talks about the dreaded “sophomore slump” – when a band returns with their second album after a highly successful debut which had garnered them tons of praise and respect in the community and just bombs it. But more often then not, you hear about a band blowing past the “slump” and not falling into its dreaded traps of failure. Its rare you hear about a band that succumbs to the horrible threat. Well, now you have, because one thing’s for sure is that Finch have fallen into the horrendous trap with their mediocre album, Say Hello To Sunshine.

While What It Is To Burn broke new ground with their melodic singing and mesmerizing screams, Say Hello To Sunshine lacks everything that made their debut so good. The most evident change in the band is the immense loss of melody. The screams are direct and harsh now, lacking any short of harmony or flow in them, they have just become the same type of shouts and screams you find on any mediocre scremo album in the indie scene. They’ve gone more towards the way of a Bert McCraken wanna-be rather then trying to strive for something unique like they used to be. Even with the loss of good screams, the singing doesn’t do much to improve the album. It too has lost its sense of harmony and become more harsh and obtrusive.

Musically, Finch used to be layered and smooth, fitting the vocals perfectly as it floated through the speakers. Now the music is much more sporadic, which sadly fits with the vocals still – but that’s not saying much. It is harsh, random and seems to cut in and out at irregular intervals. It all adds up to something fairly boring. What It Is To Burn used to be energizing and exciting, but Say Hello To Sunshine put me to sleep at four in the afternoon.

In pretty much every aspect you can think of, Finch has gone downhill. Maybe its just their natural progression, but you can’t help but feel cheated after listening to it. Its as if this is a brand new band, even theNew Found Glory-ish album artwork (think Catalyst) seems out of place here. They have loss their sense of melody and harmony and replaced it with sporadic rhythms and off tone screams that will both gain them some new fans and make them lose many more. I’m still a fan of Finch, but this is just disappointing.