The newest album from the Used, “In Love and Death,” is likely
to raise a few eyebrows, especially among the band’s followers.

The gutter punks take off running with “Take It Away,” a strong
start to the album that proves the Used still know how to make a
lot of noise. “I Caught Fire,” the second track, is carried by a
sprawling guitar riff rather than frontman Bert McCracken’s yelps,
a calmer but nonetheless typical delivery from the rockers that
catapulted themselves to the mainstage at Warped Tour with their
first full-length album, “The Used,” back in 2002.

This is the point on the album where everything begins to get
blurry. There’s some violin emerging in the background; there’s the
simple tinkling of a xylophone and weak vocal harmonies that come
together more like a Britney Spears ballad than the thrashing,
knock-your-socks-off volume for which the Used is know.

Did you accidentally sit on the remote and put the stereo on
random, and this is actually your roommate’s Ryan Cabrera CD?

Nope, this is for real: “Yesterday’s Feelings” could lull a
toddler to sleep, but not two tracks later, “Sound Effects and
Overdramatics” will give the kid a nightmare with its incoherent
screaming that lacks any semblance of rhythm.

The album becomes a disjointed, incoherent mess of teary songs
that cry me a river I’d be satisfied to drown in if it meant I
could avoid suffering through yet another Backstreet-Boy whining
fest.

The usage of scabs, blood and the proverbial f-word in the
lyrics is overwrought and unoriginal–emo kids won’t be borrowing
these words for their Instant Messenger profiles anytime soon.

“I’m melting in your eyes like my first time,” the refrain to “I
Caught Fire,” just doesn’t compare with “look in my eyes, I’m jaded
now, whatever that means.”

It’s this recognizable opening line from one of the Used’s first
singles, “Noise and Kisses,” that will live on in the annals of emo
quotables forever; that is, if their fans liked them enough in the
first place not to completely disown them after spending two weeks’
allowance on this spineless release.

“In Love and Death” isn’t a total wash, though: Aside from a
lame spoken introduction, the final track, “I’m A Fake” is the
standout of an album that starts strong and finishes stronger, but
that leaves a void in between.

The song is shameless, edgy, yet melodic and addictive–easily
one of the Used’s best songs to date. So…what happened to the
rest of the album? There is no balance established between
ear-splitting volume and wistful melody, two things that coalesced
seamlessly on the band’s first full-length; instead, the sound
jumps back and forth between the two, and the album fails to come
together as a cohesive unit.

Perhaps frontman McCracken should have spent less time
canoodling with Kelly Osbourne these past two years and more time
giving his band a little more soul, because “In Love and Death” is
about as punk as Ashlee Simpson–but no less MTV-ready.

Recommended if you like: My Chemical Romance, Thursday, “The
Osbournes”