And it's just about the most intriguing thoughtful review of anything I've read in a long time, despite my obvious bias.

" Right up front, I'm just gonna say that Hunchback is my favorite band to play shows with. Every show we've ever played in New Jersey has been with Hunchback, and every one of those shows has been one of the best I've ever witnessed. We try to put on a good show, but whenever a band is sharing the bowling alley stage or basement floor with Hunchback, the bar gets raised very high. They give their all every single time, and their madhouse energy is infectious. They are one of very few bands that have made me totally lose control as the songs reach their height, and the band themselves seem on the verge of devolving into a total mess (but they never lose the song). Something else that makes them stand out from most is they've actually gotten better with each release.

From the opening scraping picks and something-wicked-this-way-comes drums of "The Bells" to their strange and perfect cover of Christina Aguilera's "Beautiful" (with guest vocals by Killdozer's Michael Gerald and Mike Erg), Pray For Scars comes closest to truly capturing the Hunchback experience of any of their records. It's the sound of kids who grew up scouring the earth to compile well-focused and jealousy-inducing collections of records, comics, movies and memorabilia from the fringes of the past 50 years of pop culture (the cover art is by indie comix pariah Mike Diana), then spending their remaining time figuring out how to channel all of this through guitar, bass, drums and an array of hot-wired keyboards and electronics. They alternately pummel, coo and shake their way through songs that all have something lurking in the shadows. Death and desperation are constant themes, as is an obsession with beauty and its definition. When they shout "Pray for scars," it's hard to believe they were just trying to write a clever chorus. The same sincerity is there on the acoustic, echo-y lament of "The Ugliest Angel" which sounds like it could be a forgotten B-side gem from a 1960s movie soundtrack.

Someone looking to write them off quickly might call it horror-punk and they'd be totally wrong. It's too subtle, too smart, too diverse for that. There's no goofy kitsch, no face paint, no cartoony all-black anything here, and no tired riffs recycled from other bands of said genre. I'm not denying the dark undercurrent that runs through their songs, and yes it's sometimes right at the forefront, but the frenetic energy and racket they conjure up is something all their own. Unlike most of their indie rock peers, who wear their influences on their sleeve, Hunchback have learned from their heroes, not stolen from them. On a flyer, I think I once described them as "everything-core" (Sorry about that one) because the best parts of so many great musicians can be heard in their songs, including but not limited to '60s frat rock organs, proto-punk, whatever you call the sound of late '80s/early '90s Midwestern punk, and way, way more than my comparatively limited musical knowledge can put a finger on.

Is this album for everyone? Probably not. It's for someone who wants a record that's actually exciting to listen to as it shifts sounds and moods in surprising ways to give you more each time you listen to it. The best bands are the ones who don't fit into convenient little slots for the neighborhood blogger to define them by. The best bands keep to that part of the original spirit of punk rock that said, "I'm not going to play what you want me to. This is my music." The best bands realize that's a tough row to hoe, but they keep at it, and if we're lucky, they produce an album like this one. I'm getting older and yeah, getting jaded (or more accurately, getting bored), but every year there are one or two records that make me truly excited for music again, a record that makes me feel like there are still bands out there doing something special, and this year Pray For Scars is that record. - NOLEN STRALS Friday, March 28th, 2008

Link to the original review: Paper Thin Walls