Schoolyard Heroes

Forget that other album with the word "Funeral” in the title. This one is better. Writing songs about George A. Romero films, using those cool Metric-esque keyboard effects that the kids all seem to like these days, including crazy operatic back-up vocals, and singing lines like "vomit out my heart” are just a few of the things that Schoolyard Heroes do on the stellar The Funeral Science. By marring a love of gore and sci-fi with an equal admiration for Fugazi and Verdi, the band has managed to create a phenomenally original album that transcends any traditional understandings of what post-hardcore is supposed to be. Sloppy in a way that indicates a disregard for the current conventions of a genre which places a great deal of importance on technical skill, the band instead relies on their unique song structure to hold up the album. And hold up it does, by amusing at one moment with bizarre lyrics, impressing at the next with an unconventional musical idea, and, finally, getting in your head with a catchy hook that soon descends into utter sonic madness. The kind of madness that makes you think, "Shit, maybe being crazy ain’t so bad.”