The Used

Focus on the artwork, as the Used are telling you via the title of their fourth album. It's an ugly beast of a picture of a man shoving a syringe labeled "ART" into an arm bearing "WORK" scrawled in blood on it. What it all means is unclear -- is art being injected into work, is art the drug -- but what is evident is that the Used still take all this emotional bloodletting very, very seriously indeed. Four albums in, they're also taking the business of being in a band very seriously too, demonstrating a greater command of dynamics and a certain measure of professional panache, something adolescent, an adenoidal rush of their early screamo. This, of course, isn't quite the same thing as a considerable uptick in songcraft, but hooks never mattered to the Used anyway, so having a higher grade of execution helps underscore the Used's point. [This Limited Edition includes a bonus DVD.]