Judging from the cover and The Spill Canvas' band name, I was hoping for some kind of dark folk, like 16 Horsepower or Nick Cave. But alas, the old adage "never judge a book by it's cover" holds true yet again. The letdown was that instead, The Spill Canvas turned out to be emotionally charged indie rock. Or, in popular terminology, "emo."
If The Juliana Theory had been influenced by current emo bands and their guitar tones and tricks they would have sounded very similar to The Spill Canvas. Which for a current emo band, it's almost refreshing to be able to trace their sound back to someone like The Juliana Theory instead of, say, Thursday or Dashboard Confessional.
The Spill Canvas spins in fun elements to their music like hand claps and fine acoustic guitar skills as displayed on the song "The Dutch Courage." As with most emo bands the worst part of The Spill Canvas is the vocals. Even if they are reminiscent of Brett Detar, they still have that redundant whine that destroys any momentum the music may have created. This gives the vocals a repetitious quality so that you could put the vocals to one track with the music from any other and it wouldn't change it any.
If you like emo in the vein of The Juliana Theory there are worse albums to pick up. But don't expect anything world-changing.
2/4
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