If Selective Wreckage would have came out after the Troubled Stateside instead of ...is Dead no one would of batted an eye. Most of the songs on Selective Wreckage are more in the vein us Crime in Stereo fans were used before the band decided to take an unexpected turn into brand new (ha ha ha) territory of emotive pop songs.
Sadly, Selective Wreckage isn't an album but a compilation of outtakes from ...is Dead and The Troubled Stateside as well as the Fuel.Transit.Sleep EP and the songs that were supposed to end up on the split with Capital that never saw the light of day.
I'm sitting here listening to Selective Wreckage reminiscing on the days when Crime in Stereo was just a great melodic hardcore band from Long Island before Mike Sapone got his grubby little hands all over them. I'm not that bitter am I? Okay okay...you know what, I like ...is Dead but it's taken me more listens than it normally takes for me to realize that a band is moving on. And what they are moving onto isn't that bad. I mean the album still had "...But You are Vast" on it.
Back to the album at hand here, as mentioned; Selective Wreckage is just a compilation of songs that aren't easy to come by so it's nice to see them on one convenient CD rather than begging superfans over AIM for those split with Capital tracks and being an a-hole by using Soulseek to find the Fuel.Transit.Sleep. The songs on here are great in that "old" Crime in Stereo way. I'd hate to say they are in the vein of The Troubled Stateside era because that would be over-aging the band and Crime in Stereo has only been a band for little over a half a decade. These songs are all done in super "going to be stuck in your heads for month" type melodic hardcore goodness that I seem to never get enough of." The only songs that seem out of place is the brooding stomp of "These People Ought to Know Who We are and Tell That We are Here" which might as well be an My War outtake. The other oddball is intro track, "Panned Auras," which would have been a harbinger of things to come if Selective Wreckage was an actual album and hit the shelves before ...is Dead arrived.
So yes, Crime in Stereo has changed, but have they really progressed that much? As I try to listen with non-jaded ears I'm going to finally admit they haven't. Crime in Stereo is still that fun hook-filled band that once told to find the fastest record we can find. The songs on Selective Wreckage may remind us how far Crime in Stereo have gone in such a short time period but that doesn't automatically make them a band that forgot where they came from. If you are sick of the slick over-production of ...is Dead and wore your copies of Explosives and the Will to Use Them, The Troubled Stateside and that awesome The Contract EP than I urge you to pick this up and bask in recent past of what still is one of the better band out there.
