WE ARE SCIENTISTS /// WITH LOVE AND SQUALOR /// VIRGIN ///

Isn't it weird that this record was released like, last week or something? It seems like every hipster worth their weight in limited edition Editors 7"s has been rocking With Love and Squalor, WAS' major-label debut, since sometime around the fall of the Roman Empire. Thus, upon its release in completely legal, not-ripped-from-a-co-worker's-iPod format, we find ourselves writing a review for an album we've been listening to for ages. Ah, the joys of the music industry.

Let's start by saying that, simply, this record kicks ass. And I mean this in the most 6th-grade, immature, Degrassi way possible. It's about time someone made a punk-pop album that was simultaneously highbrow and lowbrow, taking big dumb riffs and crafting them into white hot scathing odes to late-night binging, passing out on people's rugs, falling in love with slutty girls and the Death of Cool. Much like the Strokes' modern classic Is This It, the album aims to rock out about the shit that happens every day of any normal guy's life, except ....Squalor takes place in a darker, more aware, post-9/11 New York, where MisShapes prevails and freezing your ass off outside a club is considered fair trade for having a smoke.

"Textbook" may rip off the bass line from the Cure's "Close to Me" practically note-for-note, but I can let this slide in the wake of the amazing trifecta of singles "The Great Escape", "It's a Hit" and "Nobody Move, Nobody Get Hurt". But it's the stomp of "The Scene is Dead" that makes this album a winner, with a layers of desperation and gloom under the sugarcoated choruses.

Whether this album will propel WAS to the top of the charts, Modest Mouse-style, or simply cement their status as the Fall Out Boy it's OK to own records by, time will only tell. But until then, feel free to head-bob to the season's rock 'n' roll hit.

Text: Cameron Cook