To begin, this is a beautiful package of a record, an excellent demonstration of the power and wonder of the potential of the physical package. It's a gatefold sleeve like a double LP, but one of the sleeves has 12" size pictures of the individual cross-stitch creations for each song. Each main sleeve is a cutout that acts like a frame for the front cross-stitch and the inner credits and tracklist on the back. The simple gold/white/black color scheme is really working for me and adds to the quality of this release, for sure.

And the first track, Open Caskets promises to continue that quality through the music. It's an undoubtedly Owen inspired song and throws a minor dip in the main guitar riff that like a twist in a good movie: unexpected and pleasant. The only drawback is that it is the first track and you expect the record to build from there.

But it doesn't.

By the end of a full listen, you're left without a hook or a reason to dig in much deeper. Oh, sure, there's some moderately interesting things and I love Evan Weiss like any fan of the Emo Revival should, but I have high standards (see what I did there?) and I want to get to the end of the album and feel things pretty significantly. This one is just too nice, I think. Like everything is controlled and contained, and you guys know I hate that. But it is pretty.

If you like this review, you can buy me a coffee.