Before We Begin May we just admire this album cover for one moment, which looks like Gordon Ramsay turned into a giant fruit bat? Good. Also, I would like to note that, while I typically select a band's best rated release on RYM to give them the fairest chance, Aiden's discography ranged from a 1.99 to a whopping 2.6, so in this instance I have chosen their lowest-rated release. Now that I bring it up, I had a difficult time finding a decent bitrate of this album, because you know, when you're listening to bad music, only the purest and cleanest horse**** will do.


Total Plays 8

What I Remember Maybe it's because the lead singer looks like a vampire toad, but I feel like I remember his nasally voice, and I know that after 8 plays, I hated this band. That might have been on its own merit, but I also remember that they were the laughing stock of the Scene back when I was seventeen. Yes, kids who listened to Avenged Sevenfold thought this band was horrible.

01 Knife Blood Nightmare Literally the first lyric on this album is "AUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGHHHHH". All of my expectations are thus met.

02 The Last Sunrise A bit of chugging and noodling, and then a clearly teenage voice snarling lyrics, possibly about being a vampire. Choice lyrics include "This nightmare won't last long//are you scared to sing this song?" All of these allusions to Dracula make me think about how I once ruined Interview With a Vampire for my best friend by pointing out all of the homoerotic undertones in the interactions between Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise.

03 Die Romantic This is the third consecutive song to mention nightmares, and considering the album title, I'm starting to wonder if it's coincidence or some semblance of a concept album. Wikipedia tells me nothing, except that this is the band's most commercially "lauded" album, which resolves the question of why Scenekids hate it.
The chrous of this song is inevitably going to become lodged in my head as a result of its simplicity and repitition: DIE ROMANTIC, ROMANTIC, ROMANTIC, IT'S ALL WE NEED /repeat.

04 Genetic Design For Dying This is the quintessential "slow anthem" song on the post-hardcore/pop punk album, about running away from your parents and doing heroin.

05 Breathless And the word "nightmare" is mentioned before I can even type up the countdown joke about it. I am going to go out on a limb and say that this is deliberate, though I'm pretty sure it takes more than just repeating a word in every song to make something a "concept album". No? Okay, I'll tell Pink Floyd to go home.

Musically, nothing has changed from the first track, although some songs include less throaty anguish than others. Mostly it's quick power cords and a bit of noodling with some borderline-shouting, but wait! This song has an outro! Two acoustic notes alternating and some wind noises? Epic.

06 Unbreakable (I.J.M.A.) Going to go out on a limb here and predict that I. J. M. A. stands for "I'm Just Mad at Adults".

07 It's Cold Tonight This is an ode to slitting wrists, throats, and setting fire to buildings (probably highschools). This reminds me of a fun game to play with all of the youths you know: Teenage Boy, Or Serial Killer! E.g. The new guy at work says "people are so stupid, haha, there are a lot of them I'd just like to shoot". Is he: A) A teenage boy or B) A potential shooting suspect the FBI should know about? Can't tell? THAT'S THE FUN!

08 Enjoy the View For some reason this track is completely missing from what I downloaded, so I don't even get to listen to it. OH SHUCKS WHAT A SHAME.

09 Goodbye We're Falling Fast Chugchugchug-ch-ch-chug (noodlenoodle). The nightmare motif seems to have faded away after track 6, so I no longer understand the direction of this album, but I think this is a retelling of Romeo and Juliet, where lovestruck teenagers jump off a building together. And wait for it... YES! EpicXcore slow acoustic breakdown! This album is everything I'd ever hoped it would be.

10 The City is Far From Here The penultimate track makes an effort at sounding aggressively hopeful, with some sort of uniting and uplifting chorus, including a buildup of guitars and intensely (hilariously) spoken words into the chorus. And this treasure, "Look what I've done now//I'm dying for love and you're bleeding".

11 See You in Hell... This is the only track over 3.5 minutes (blessedly), which is naturally supposed to be the enraged-anthem track, complete with call-and-response gang vocals. No pop punk album is complete without gang vocals.

Conclusion This was pretty much run-of-the-mill-awful, without being outrageous enough to really make fun of. Perhaps that lack-of-impression is the entire reason even 00s emos have trashed this band. A lot of artists would rather make a bad impression than none at all.

Oh, but before I end this, I want to share this with you.

Melodramatic Camping Log, Day 1:


Hour 0: Ben brought two fudgecicles for our road trip, packed in ice in his cooler. They have melted. We have not yet left the driveway.


Hour 3: We stop to buy alcohol. This is integral to The Camping.


Hour 4: A mosquito has flown in the car window and landed on Ben's hat. Upon hearing this news, he has begun to shout and swerve the car. I strike him a number of times, although the mosquito departed some minutes ago.


Hour 5: We have arrived at The Camping, which is a dirt path so heavily forested, the sun is blotted out by trees.


Hour 5: Correction, it is actually a cloud of mosquitoes.


Hour 6: We have fled The Camping covered in welts. Ben's legs have doubled in thickness from the bites. Our fellow campers looked on as we set up half a tent, shrieking and smacking one another, cursing wildly. Ben thinks we should sleep in the car, while I say we've seen enough nature and can now go home.


Hour 8: We marinate in deet.


Hour 10: We return to The Camping and spend over an hour searching for the toilet in the dead of night. The campground is a labyrinth. I pass the same cottage seven times in the dark. In abject desperation, I relieve myself behind the car, and stumble back to the tent with a bare foot and a broken spirit.


Hour 11: We return to the half-tent. The mosquitoes have departed, and we finish putting the tent together.


Hour 12: We take the tent apart and rebuild it, but this time not on top of the fire pit.


Hour 14: Signing off.




Melodramatic Camping Log, Day 2.




Hour 18: The tent is not ventilated, and throughout the night I must periodically wring out my bedding and pajamas outside the flap, lest Ben or I drown face-down in a reservoir of human sweat.


Hour 20: It is morning. Although it is early, it is so hot the tent is a sun oven and even the mosquitoes have given up.


Hour 21: Correction, they have all relocated to the interior of the car.


Hour 21: We traipse into town for breakfast at the local eatery. There is something on the menu called "The Duckstomp", which appears to be a skillet-scramble with a cinnamon bun on top.


Hour 22: I stop counting my welts after forty-five.


Hour 23: Ben takes the car to visit the locals. I spread myself out on a picnic table under the skies and wait for God to take me as a sacrifice. He doesn't, and this is a disappointment. I roll over and nap face-down in the middle of The Camping.


Hour 26: Ben returns. He decrees I have sun stroke, and passes me water. One of the wet fudgecicles has burst inside the cooler. All of our provisions now float in a milky brown slurry of ice and crushed dreams.


Hour 31: Ben is an addict. It has been barely a half hour and he must re-apply his deet. He claims he can feel the mosquitoes on his skin and in his clothes. I tell him he can fight it, but he is not strong enough. He empties our second can of deet.


Hour 32: We produce a camp fire, and immediately realize we are much too tired to tend it. We douse it and retire for the night.


Hour 37: Ben bolts upright in the night, and says to me "Meg, get up, it's time to go. Oh, wait, it's five AM. Nevermind". Within a minute and a half he falls back to sleep. I lie awake for two hours.


Hour 40: Ben is a mosquito bite.


Hour 43: We wait until the morning is at its absolute hottest point before choosing to crawl inside the tentoven to pack up our belongings. I change my clothes three times. When I emerge, it is 110% like that scene from Ace Ventura.


Hour 44: We did it! We did camping and now we can go home! The Camping is complete.