I’ve been a fan of Park’s dark pop since I got my hands on their 2001 release, No Signal. But as the tracks of this album cycled through and I hit those from their first full-length on my iTunes, it was hard to tell that the albums had changed. I only realized that Building a Better ______ had ended because I knew the words to the first track of No Signal and therefore knew that it was no longer just the deja entendu feeling but rather that I’d experienced at the start of the new disc. So? Yes, the band has a signature sound, and I happen to quite enjoy it. On the surface this makes it difficult to see that they’ve built a better Park and a better album. But on a second listen, you can hear the band’s more precise and deliberate timing and can tell that they’ve opted for a mellower sound. The layering of guitar riffs and rhythms is one of the band’s most interesting contributions to the powerchord-driven emo genre; powerchords have their place in contemporary pop and rock music, and these guys make use of them but do not rely on them. Lyrics are another strongpoint; though they convey typical emo angst, they do so with a poetry that is, for the most part, not trite.

Valida’s Editorial Point: Too often within the emo genre, I hear lyrics that are transparent – instead of hearing the struggle faced by the artist in the situation he/she is describing, I hear the struggle faced by the artist when he/she was trying to scribble out his/her thoughts poetically. I can see the artist opening up the thesaurus looking for a new, obscure word for “leave” or “broken”. These lyrics, to me, have in the writing process lost the feeling that drove them out of the artist’s head in the first place.

Tracklisting:
1. The Trophy Wife
2. Mississippi Burning
3. Who Is Aliandra
4. Angels And Errors
5. A Message
6. Chica Chica
7. La Amoureux
8. Irukandji
9. Intro
10. Hide And Seek
(11.) A Message (Hidden Track)