Smoke Or Fire

Smoke or Fire's third album, The Speakeasy, should have been their best yet. After releasing two really good albums in Above the City and The Sinking Ship, it would have been great for the band to focus the strongest parts of their previous efforts into a record demonstrating their achieved potential. While The Speakeasy is good, it sounds as though the band got too comfortable with themselves. A number of songs on the album come close to being great ("Monsters Among Us" and "Hope and Anchor"), but Smoke or Fire repeatedly set themselves up only to fall flat. The Speakeasy has a lot of good songs, but nothing as strong as standouts from previous albums. That's not to say Smoke or Fire aren't any good this time around. They still know how to play urgent melodic punk, but it's disappointing as a fan to know they're capable of much greater things.