Armor For Sleep - What To Do When You Are Dead

I’ve always been a bit of a sucker for concept albums. Being the sort who prefers to listen to an album the whole way through if I’m going to hear a single second, I view any recurring themes or common threads as a chance for a sweetened payoff. It adds another layer of storytelling to the mix that often, at least in the better cases, gives off a cinematic feel. When done right, the songs act as scenes that ebb and flow to the overriding arc of the story. When done wrong, you have Armor For Sleep’s What to Do When You Are Dead. What to Do When You Are Dead follows the story of a man who commits suicide (the title of the first track, “Car Underwater,” gives a pretty clear idea how) and becomes a remorseful ghost, wanting only to come back for the girl who wronged him. In “The Truth About Heaven,” he warns: “don’t believe that its better to leave everything behind / don’t believe that the weather is perfect the day you die.” From that point forward he hides in basements, peeps in her window and steals a walk along side of her when she thinks she’s alone. It appears that death has released his inner-stalker. This is all well and good, but the fact that almost each track is cut from the same emo-anthem cookie cutter makes it difficult to stay interested from beginning to end. You get halfway through the album before a song breaks this mold (the dreamy, drum machine-paced “A Quick Little Flight”) and have to wait for the last track for it to happen again (the rousing “The End of a Fraud,” complete with soulful Dark Side of the Moon style backing vocals). This flat dynamic is what really sinks What to Do When You Are Dead as a concept piece. It only retains such classification in a lyrical sense. I suppose if you threw out the story line, you might be left with a decent enough emo-punk album, but Armor For Sleep clearly have higher aspirations. Aspirations that appear to exist beyond their reach. [www.armorforsleep.com]