[music] EXO, The Safety Primer Justice (2003)

i4 Records
Total Running Time - 48:50

Personnel
Noel Arnim - Bass, vox; Jason Lee - Guitar; Doug Meis - Drums; Scott Tallarida - Guitar, vox; Jim DiNou - electronics; Ben Schellhase - Bass

1. Liberated
2. System Undone
3. God Save The Milky Way
4. Unsteady
5. A Day Like Today
6. The Enemy
7. Hey, Mr. Everything
8. My Evening News
9. The Plague
10. She Said!
11. Dear Departed Fool
18. Bonus Track

Sometimes, things just don't fit in the way they're supposed to. If there's an underlying mantra to The Safety Primer Justice, the second full-length effort from Chicago's EXO, that pretty much sums it up. People don't fit into normal society, guitars don't fit into traditional harmonic structures, rhythms don't fit into normal musical measures. This whole notion is summed up nicely in "System Undone," the second track on the disk, when singer Scott Tallarida imparts "I thought I'd live forever/I should already be the annointed one by now" in his characteristic pre-apocalyptic snarl.

That's just one example. Thematically, the perceived difficulties of modern living are ticked off with varying degrees of effectiveness -- the opening lines of "God Save the Milky Way" are a little heavy-handed for me, for one -- but all with relentless intensity. The band delivers barbed hooks one after another, with the consistent surprise of so many potentially abrasive elements coalescing into such good songs. The guitars have a tendency to be harsh and sometimes dissonant. Rhythmically, the band has an almost dogmatic avoidance of the downbeat, with big hits sprawling over barlines at nearly every turn. But maybe it's all that built-in tension that makes the release so satisfying.