School is out for summer, my internship is over, and I'm unemployed until I get back to Ohio, and even then, probably until June. What better thing to do than review stuff then?
This right here is a two disc compilation of B-sides and rarities from The Anniversary (obviously, if you read the title). For those who never listened, the closest comparison I can think of when thinking about this band's first album would be Motion City Soundtrack, except a few years older. However, while The Anniversary's first album was a complete sugar rush of keyboard infused pop-punk awesomeness, they made a complete left turn on their second album, the classic rock indebted Your Majesty. It was a turn I didn't get when it first came out, and it's one I still do not get to this day. In the end, I think Motion City Soundtrack has had a better overall track record than The Anniversary.
However, this does not diminish how important of an album Designing A Nervous Breakdown was to me. I picked it up when I was in 9th grade, and became immediately attached to it. I first heard the band through one of those Vagrant Records Another Year On The Streets compilations (incidentally, the first place I ever heard Rocket From The Crypt!), and man, I thought I was on to some really underground shit once I tracked down their album. I kept that album like a secret, only showing it to a few people. Which is why Your Majesty was such a slap in the face to me- as it showcased a band abandoning everything they were really haphazardly.
As for this collection, it's a bit like a see-saw in terms of my relationship with The Anniversary. The songs that sound more like Designing are fucking great, and it's interesting to hear some of those songs in rougher, demo form. However, some of the other stuff on here is just head-scratchingly bad. I remember right before they broke up, in a couple issues of Alternative Press, that they had been working on some new EPs, one of which was supposed to contain "campfire songs" and the other would contain more reggae oriented tracks. Well, some of those songs are on this collection, and the idea of The Anniversary playing reggae is JUST as bad as you think it is. Please, skip the song "Che" every time you listen to this. I think I found myself actually shaking my head a few times during the duration of Disc 2, which compiles most of the Your Majesty era rarities.
Oh, and who thought it would be a good idea to put those two live tracks on there of Josh Berwanger talking between songs? Especially when they aren't the most endearing ones, it really just kind of makes him come off as as huge of a prick people were perceiving him as during the Your Majesty days.
Anyway, this was good for the sake of digging up some Designing-era B-sides, but at the same time a little disheartening to basically chronicle the way I feel this band managed to shoot itself in both feet stylistically.
They still have a MySpace, by the way: http://www.myspace.com/theanniversary69
-Erik
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