Off With Their Heads' Hospitals was the soundtrack to my frustrating and impossibly boring government job that preceded my enrollment in law school. Since then I've found myself working my way through their seemingly endless piles of seven inches and EPs. From The Bottom is their first full length and I am beyond excited by the mix of the album. Whoever mastered this was smart enough to bring the bass way up in the mix and thin it to give it this great metallic crunch that provides a really interesting and abrasive backbone to OWTH's brand of melodic and depressive pop punk. I guess the same can be said for the kick drum.

The record doesn't have the same bounce as Hospitals and that is only partly due to the song writing. In many ways, it sounds like a hardcore album, with the rhythm section pushing the band forward. Lyrically, the whole album is despairingly dark and filled with self-loathing. It's an interesting take on the whole pop punk formula and, in a weird way, it's remarkably endearing. These themes aren't really being explored in the genre and it's clear that a lot of emotion and effort went into the end product. What we get is a piece of Ryan, entirely unfiltered.

Off With Their Heads Myspace - everything but "Your Child Is Dead" is off the new album.