REVIEWSThe Used, ‘Artwork’

3

• SPIN Rating:3 of 10

• • Listen:

    Spotify

Label: Reprise

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."

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