Album Review: The Canyon by The Used

Drawing dichotomous inspiration from happy childhood memories and the devastation following a friend's suicide, the Used explore mortality and the big picture on The Canyon, their seventh and most ambitious effort to date. Produced by Ross Robinson, this double album is bloody, raw, and unflinchingly personal, its impact made more effective by an unpolished, live feel achieved by recording directly to tape. Taking new artistic steps, the Used incorporate elements from prog-leaning bands like At the Drive-In and Coheed and Cambria, as well as dramatic rock outfits like Muse and My Chemical Romance.

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To paraphrase I'm Alan Partridge's Tony Hayers, The Used are a band who, over the last 15 years, have gained a reputation for making mostly bad records. Their self-titled debut grossed you into submission, looming over like Tyler Durden, shaking its bloodied face and screaming "YOU DON'T KNOW WHERE I'VE BEEN!" until you gave it everything it wanted. Since then, though, they've offered up a series of ever-diminishing returns - through electronic dalliances and the back-to-basics shrug of Artwork, to 2014's political-with-a-small p Imaginary Enemy.

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Both halves of The Canyon begin with words unaccompanied by music. The first disc, a glimpse into Robert McCracken's mind-frame in the wake of his friend's death, an uncomfortably human and humanistic moment; the second a biting piece of George Orwell's satire. There couldn't be more of a difference between the two, yet they provide an easy anchor point, a stylistic choice to link the more personal, intimate first disc with the second's socio-political concerns.

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Read more: Bert McCracken talks about the Used's "happy/sad" new album For a number of reasons, The Canyon is unlike anything you've heard from the Used. For starters, after years of working with the gloss-heavy John Feldmann, the band eschew many modern production techniques on their seventh album ….

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