Straylight Run - The Needles The Space

Straylight Run has finally hit the nail on the head. For fans expecting great things from former Taking Back Sunday member John Nolan and company, and who were disappointed by their self titled debut and follow up EP Prepare To Be Wrong, this is the album you've been waiting for. With The Needles The Space, the band creates an album that is both intensely odd and at the same time eerily knowledgeable of its own reality. Nolan and his sister Michelle, who share principle songwriting duties, shine like never before throughout Needles, both as lyricists and vocalists, though they do so in different ways. Michelle's quiet crooning on songs like "How Do I Fix My Head" serves as a stark contrast to John's intensity on numbers like "Soon We'll Be Living In The Future." Musically, the band mixes in new (for them) instrumentation with varying rhythms that are far from anything their previous work suggests, as drummer Will Noon is at the top of his game throughout. The album is truly an overall success, as the break from Victory Records allowed Straylight Run to make the album exactly as they wanted. What they produced may be their masterpiece. [www.straylightrun.com]