The Falcon is here, so ready your crusty, unpolished, dull silverware and let a knife sink through the skin of the first layer of Unicornography, "The Angry Cry of the Angry Pie." I warn you though, don't be surprised when you hear the pie's shrill scream before his patented rough-yet-melodious crooning, for Brendan Kelly has ensured that this pie will be angry at you for digging into him, yelling: You want a piece of me? / I'm like a razorblade. / I'm like a pound of blubber smothering a live grenade!
Apparently, the title wasn't totally a joke. Though it would have been nice if it was, because Unicornography's first slice is possibly it's worst. The problem is that the first piece should be one of the best (as it is fresh out of the oven) and should taste similar to the rest of the pie, but "The Angry Cry of the Angry Pie" doesn't seem to live up to that because the rest of Unicornography is actually quite delicious.
Moving past the pie references, and the first song, Unicornograhpy becomes something much more entertaining once the second track, "Blackout," kicks in. Although it may be difficult to tell from Kelly's ever-so-colorful apathetic tirades (which brim with equal amounts of humor, horror and hostility), this is a band playing music just for fun, and that's what this record is: fun.
Part of Unicornography's charm is certainly the gritty production of the guitars layered with Kelly's raspy (and often bouncy) delivery, but this record would hardly be as good as it is without the addition of the strangely appropriate appearances of the acoustic guitar. Slinking up the backbone of the album, the presence of the acoustic guitar on various tracks manages to define them all on its own, whether it's backing up a light-hearted sing-along or going solo for a few seconds.
Re-recorded tracks from the band's EP are "The Routes We Wander" and "Building the Perfect Asshole Parade." While they fit quite nicely with the rest of the new tracks, "The Routes We Wander" doesn't manage to live up to the first version because it lacks of some of the quirks that made the original so great, particularly that goofy-yet-crucial grunts towards the end of the song. "Building an Even More Perfect Asshole Parade" (the title was slightly altered) fares better with an ending that makes it seem even more memorable than the original.
Unicornography is an interesting amalgamation of acoustic guitars playing what sound like re-written Slapstick chords and blisteringly fast guitar-driven gritty pop-punk (and that's just the short description). From the memorable sing-along "The La-Z-Boy 500" lyric When the bell tolls I'll be fine. / They say that living is a lot like dying. to the driving "The Unicorn Odyssey" and the fantastic closer "When I Give the Signal, Run!," the record never loses that "fun" quality it was going for. To add to it, the lyrical themes are so entertaining and creatively written that some could argue it's deeper than the band lets on, and really, what's better than listening to something that's fun yet thoughtfully reflective.
