Straightfaced

Huntington Beach's Straightfaced return for their fourth album with a different line-up, now stripped down to a four-piece. Their sound has a heaviness that sticks out among their sunny-sided SoCal brethren. This is the sort of thing that would come out of New York, sounding like Helmet meets Sick Of It All. Hand in hand with the dark and heavy sound comes the painfully angst-ridden lyrics. "Happy," the first song, starts off with "Not enough to keep me happy. As if I ever knew what happy was. Don't wanna talk about love when I don't got none." And as heavy and brooding as this is, it has just enough polish to appeal to fans of the mainstream.