Artist: Movies With Heroes
Album: Nothing Here Is Perfect
Label: CI Records
Tracks: 10
Review By: Jacob Gehman

Let’s be honest for a minute. I expected absolutely nothing from this album. Nothing, nada, nil... less than nothing. After all, Movies With Heroes have been around for anywhere from nine years to, say, nineteen years (the larger number picked out of the air at random). They had been called Mack, The Coffee Man (which, technically speaking, was a much better band name and one they should have kept) before switching over to Movies With Heroes. I have a Mack, The Coffee Man cd from 1997, though I would be willing to bet they were around before then, too.

I had no idea Movies With Heroes was continuing to write music and play shows until the owner of CI Records told me they were releasing it and, to super loosely quote him, “It’s pretty much totally incredible.” (My words, his excitement and enthusiasm.) Being a well known snob and music know-it-all  I pretty much bluntly told him, “Uhhhhh, no.” (My words, my lack of enthusiasm, and a pretty good replication of my way of understating things.)

That said, I still requested this album when I saw Decapolis got a copy for review. It’s been quite a while since I’ve gotten a CD which is terrible and I wanted to use some of the new idioms I picked up lately to pick it apart. So if this were a two out of four star cd I probably would have been more disappointed than if it was a zero or one star cd. But perhaps I reached the best of any worlds because not only did this turn out to not be middle of the road, or pretty terrible, “Nothing Here Is Perfect” is a flat out great album.

Let’s continue the honest trend as I reveal one of the dark secrets of this album: It’s emo. It’s emotional. It bleeds tears at every bend, nook, and cranny. I had almost convinced myself otherwise after one or two listens. I didn’t want it to be “emo.” Good things aren’t emo, though emotional is fine. (Well hey, there is a difference! Fine as the line may be, there is a line.) But after seeing them live the day after receiving this album in the mail I was forced to conclude that “emo” is a very apt description. Their lead singer acted out the very part of someone wanting to cry very hard about something.

Which is why it is important to remember that really good songs are really good songs, regardless of their stylistic dressings. Simply good or mediocre songs will crumble under the weight of stylistic missteps, but great songs will rise above and make style a moot point. “Nothing Here Is Perfect” reaches that point where style becomes an afterthought. A good thing, too, because I could have thought up quite a few jokes (or humorously stated truths) regarding the album title.

The big thing that stands out about the songs are the choruses, which are huge. Not just occasionally, but just about every song features a memorable, singable, enjoyable, eye-opening chorus. Many bands, after crafting a great chorus, just slap some versus on either side of it and call it a song. Movies With Heroes, on the other hand, recognize the importance of creating a song that is interesting from start to finish, which allows the whole song to flow as one interesting, great piece. A verse here, a chorus there, a bridge sprinkled around for good measure, another verse... but done differently. Nothing about the song craft feels like a formula.

When the above paragraph is taken into consideration there really isn’t a lot of room for improvement for “Nothing Here Is Perfect.” The only aspect of the album which might allow the album title to ring true is the production. Ironically enough, coming from a truly independent label like CI Records, the problem is not under production but sleight over production. While I don’t feel that the over production infringes on Movies With Heroes’ creativity (unlike, for example, “Silence” by Blindside, which is so overproduced it is unlistenable), I do think that cutting back a bit on the production would have allowed more personality to shine through, which would have really put this album through the roof. But as a complaint that is relatively minor, and one that won’t be noticed by most people.

In summary, in case you couldn’t tell from the body of this review, “Nothing Here Is Perfect” is good. Think about THAT while sucking on your mustache.