The midtempo “Tiny Raindrop” has makings of an arena-sized alt-rock single it’s perhaps the song that will best serve as a set opener when this band has to fill bigger rooms on the road with Coheed and Cambria. When the track does slow down in its bridge, it does so in a pulsing, patient, calm-before-the-storm manner while drummer Bailey Van Ellis chases us back into a blistering pace.
Simmons delivers an intense cry of, “I lost my head / I lost my heart” that kinda feels like, “Fuck what you told me / It all leads to smoking alone in my room in the end” felt like when I first heard it – simply begging to be played louder. I’m convinced it was written to sound great on the record, only to be put to shame in a live setting. “Lost Your Name” is a head-banger in every sense of the term. “A roller coaster ride in the dark to places I don’t want to go / Parachutes to break my fall, tangled up in deeper thought / Make falling faster, I’m falling faster.” Simmons starts that line with fiery, throaty yells then gets into his twangy, softer delivery before the band picks up into an avalanche of a chorus. Opener “Parachutes” proves that at its core, this band is still playing sad music that sounds angry. And again, this word comes up: It’s a more holistically sound album. B&C is louder, grittier, grungier, sadder, angrier and greater on LP2. explored the quieter parts of their sound rather than the deafening parts. I expected something more subdued than Separation, something where Simmons & Co. It sounds terrific (you can thank producer Will Yip), its songs are better-crafted, Jon Simmons’ lyrics are more memorable and as a holistic entity, it acts as a wrecking ball determined to leave an impact upon the listener. It makes me feel stupid when a band forces me to write the same thing twice – but The Things We Think We’re Missing completely overshadows Separation in most every way.
When I reviewed Separation, I wrote that Balance and Composure took their self-earned standards, the ones they earned by releasing a great EP called Only Boundaries, burnt those standards to the ground and wrote a book on how their genre should be done. You know the songs that you’ve listened to thousands of times but you’ll still never skip when they come up on a playlist. It’s a record that has true lasting value, the kind you feel in your bones the kind where you know it doesn’t matter how many times you hear a song like “Lost Your Name,” because it’ll never feel played out. Somewhere bigger with more ears listening. It’s significant in the fact that this is the album that will provide Balance and Composure with a launching pad to leave this little community and move along to…wherever the fuck this band is going. It’s significant in the fact that it’s a new full-length album from one of the most beloved bands in our little community, coming at us in hotly anticipated fashion. The Things We Think We’re Missing is a significant record. And I have no sweeping statement for you, because The Things We Think We’re Missing leaves me – yes, me, a 22-year-old with a keyboard and reliable Internet connection – completely speechless. Well, lists are unimportant, and album reviews are glorified blogs. To tell you that Balance and Composure wrote our album of the year, or whatever. I mean, that’s what we’re here for, album reviewers. When you hear a record like this and you’re going to write about it, you really want to open up with some grandiose, sweeping statement that sets the tone for the next few paragraphs.
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