Boysetsfire has long been one of the more underrated bands in rock music. For the entirety of its career, Boysetsfire has been hurt by its status as “godfathers” of the much-maligned “emocore” genre and its vocal socialist views. It’s a wholly undeserved batch of slights, and Boysetsfire proves this with “The Misery Index: notes from the plague years.”
Aside from the overly long and pretentious title, “Misery Index” is a near-flawless album. It’s a reinvention of the genre the band helped build, complete with a decreased emphasis on obnoxious atonal screaming and developing lyrics that move beyond the scope of the band’s previous efforts.
The most surprising part of the album is how uniformly melodic it is. All of the band’s previous work has shown a tendency towards soaring vocals. Here, however, Boysetsfire has presented a more straightforward rock ‘n’ roll album without the pretension that soaked every inch of its former style.
Boysetsfire is still an “issue” band, but its age seems to have given it a more fully formed political vision. Whereas the band used to rely on a crude sense of humor and knee-jerk reactions, the album “Misery Index” is able to present a viewpoint without being overt.
The band does revert to some more conventional songs, but the songs are kept short and out of the way. It took the band almost a decade, but if there’s any justice in mainstream music, Boysetsfire may finally break through.