Rating: NNN
I guess you really can’t blame STD for sounding like they’re going through an identity crisis, since their first album came out before they’d finished high school. So now that they’ve decided to forgo all that pissy teenage melodrama, it sounds like Alarm is a rather deliberate 180-degree switcharoo even if well-put-together rockers like Dying Day and Say You’ll Never Leave retain the jumpy energy of old. Even singer Chris Conley has toned down his once enraging nasal whine and sounds unusually aggressive. Sound The Alarm shows that while they’re still very much an acquired taste, these guys are much more capable than many would have liked to think. Saves the Day play Sunday (April 30) at Kool Haus.