The Used

Lead screamer Bert McCracken already called this Utah emo-metal outfit’s fourth album a concept piece about “hating yourself,” so there’s zero mystery in his snot-nosed enunciations of sorrow and bloodletting. The Used’s call-and-response choruses seem to exist solely to make palatable some of the most loathsome mixed metaphors about loathing ever recorded (this album’s finest: “I’ll be your loaded gun waiting to come undone”). Turgid even for the genre, Artwork will make you hate yourself for singing along with tricky standouts like “Empty With You.”

By Spencer Kornhaber