The Used - New Music

THE USED / NEW ALBUM ‘HEARTWORK (DELUXE)’ 

WOW! The Used have released previous album ‘Heartwork’ a year on, with 11 additional songs! 11! That’s a total of 27 Songs acclimating to 1 hour 19 minutes. That’s a massive chunk of music, a real treat for us all this week. 

The Used were renowned as being one of the most raw of modern rock bands- heart open, throat raw, palms red and bleeding. They have been a POWER in rock music seen 2001. This original record saw them return with an overall, more polished sound, and track by track the guys travelled a journey through their musical options, touching on various sounds and dipping into other genres just subtly, with the help of cameos from musical friends and acquaintances. 

On lead single and album-opener ‘Paradise Lost, A Poem By John Milton’, that’s accomplished by giving Bert free rein to indulge his wordiest literary tendencies and revolutionary thoughts against a mischievous musical backdrop, rooted in the sounds of their heyday but then reaching upward and outward. Track 01 on The Used records are always different, moving, powerful and unique. You can tell a The Used record, a Burt written album, immediately. He is a poet and this does not variate from this pattern of eternal usedness at all…To whom it may concern. And all the tragic we’ve been through. No matter where I go I keep on running into you. Blink of an eye. Feels like forever. Same as it ever was. Same as whatever. Before the yellow fades to blue. I’m shaken. I’m shaken. I’m shaken. I’m shaken. All the feels, thanks Bert. 

Second track ‘Blow Me’ veers off wildly, though, bringing FEVER 333​’s brilliant vocalist Jason Aalon Butler aboard for a murderously cathartic detour into serrated post-hardcore territory. ‘BIG, WANNA BE’, meanwhile, is a swaggering anthem with emphasis on the ​‘pop’ in ​‘pop-rock’ and its sights on the world’s stadia. ​‘There’s no looking back now, no looking down,’ sings Bert. ​‘I wanna be BIG!’ Quite.

Featuring blink-182 legend Mark Hoppus, ‘The Lighthouse’ is a surging, arms-in-the-air earworm with a breezy aesthetic and simple chorus line (​‘I can be your lighthouse…’) that’d fit on any Top 40 rundown; that other blink legend, Travis Barker features on track ‘Obvious Blasé’, which packs a little more complexity beneath an equally polished surface, both songs feature a pop heavy, happy-go-lucky kinda perky sound, The Used kinda leaning into those Blink vibes. Beartooth frontman Caleb Shomo’s contribution to this collaborative record feels especially convincing, on ’ The Lottery’ his voice lasers through with a loud and recognisable sound, there is for sure only one Caleb Shomo, this track has to be one of our faves. Shomo & McCracken’s huge vocals mixing and weaving is a treat for all hardcore loving ears, sounding deep dark and heavy.  ‘Darkness Bleeds’ builds its fiery fist-in-the-air anthem around a marshmallowy bassline, feeling truly original. Then heart-breaking (original version) closer ‘To Feel Something’ dares to be Linkin Park at their most fragile and innovative. ​‘I just wanna feel something,’ Bert begs before an avalanche of synths wash us off into a sea of static…

About the new additions the band says;

“Not a moment of our time in the studio for the ‘Heartwork’ sessions was wasted. It seemed that every new day brought with it a song worth listening to. Therefore, we are beyond proud to present to you all of the songs that didn’t make the record; the entirety of the session. With love, THE USED”

The entirety of the session! Wow, no B Sides here guys. These new tracks continue the journey of heartbreak and raw emotion like we’ve come to expect from these guys, but follow the thread of genre play that the 16 songs before it have established. Jump into your boat and allow The Used to take you on a ‘Night-Sea Journey’ while you’re ‘Playing The Victim’ and we’ll…”See You in Hell’.