ARTIST: Smile Empty Soul
ALBUM: Consciousness
LABEL: F.O.F. Label Group/EMI
RELEASE DATE: August 25, 2009
Rockin’ You Out of Coma
Written by Brett Bayne
Sean Danielsen is pissed. You can tell he’s pissed because his bitter, anguished lyrics contain a lot of cuss words—and he knows all of the really good ones. From the very first moments of “Faker,” the first track of the long-delayed Smile Empty Soul album, Danielsen wastes no time unleashing his bile on the many liars, posers, contemptuous lovers, dumb blondes, skinny bitches, miserable drunks and game-players who are evidently folks that the poor sap comes in contact with on a regular basis. Hey, you’d swear a lot too if you knew these leeches.
Fortunately, the singer-guitarist’s misery is our ecstasy. Recorded at least a year ago, Consciousness is SES’s fourth and most musically rich album from the L.A.-based grungemeisters, offering up a dozen tunefully blistering vocal tracks and one excellent instrumental. Ingeniously produced by Eddie Wohl, the album is an impressive hard-rock confection, with nonstop flashes of genius from the trio, bolstered by bassist Ryan Martin and drummer Jake Kilmer, who perform with maddening creativity and imagination. Danielsen draws seemingly boundless inspiration from those who would attempt to keep him boxed in or under their thumb, and the result is a guitar bliss-out. My favorite track was “Compromise,” a radio-friendly midtempo rocker whose gorgeous harmonies perfectly balance the uneasy cat-and-mouse lyrics (“When will you realize now you’re forever mine / You don’t have to run”). Yet the CD is so full of superior material, from moody to downright savage, that at any of half a dozen of the tracks could make their mark on Billboard’s Modern Rock chart. Already the album’s first official single, “Don’t Ever Leave,” has nabbed some modest airplay; here’s hoping that Consciousness expands their fan base appreciably—and that Danielsen never stops consorting with losers.