As you may recall, I thought that Crisis was a ter­rible album com­pared to Alexisonfire’s pre­vi­ous stuff. Old Crows, Young Car­din­als seems to be a step back in the right dir­ec­tion for the band. Lyr­ic­ally, Alex­is­on­fire have always been a touch on the com­ical side — and this album is no excep­tion. Music­ally, though, Watch Out! was incred­ible, with peaks and troughs in all the right places, and sear­ing gui­tar work. They’re not back there yet, the raw energy of .44 Cal­ibre Love Let­ter and the vocal intric­a­cies of Hey, It’s Your Funeral Mama don’t quite make a comeback on OCYC. They’re in there some­where though. It’s a bit like watch­ing the girl next door tak­ing off her clothes, but the cur­tains are closed, and all you can see is a vague sil­hou­ette. The sooner they draw the cur­tains back, the bet­ter, but until then, well, at least we’ve got some­thing to dream about.

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