Vulnerable by The Used

From the frontman’s addiction to painkillers (again), a newly wedded guitarist, to an addition of a baby in The Used family; there surely was a lot of inspiring life-changing moments that they came up with a new album. Yes, The Used is back – stronger than ever – with their fifth album, Vulnerable.

After leaving the historic Reprise Records and creating their own label Anger Music Group (under the direction of indie label Hopeless Records), The Used is finally able to make music without any meddling from the recording label; the music 100% comes straight from the very creative brains and hearts of Bert McCracken, Jepha Howard, Quinn Allman, and Dan Whitesides.

One thing that certainly will catch the listener’s ears is how The Used did a lot of experiment with almost-dubstep-like bits in most of the songs, including I Come Alive, This Fire, Shine, and the most shocking track off Vulnerable, Hands and Faces. However, this somehow brings a breath of fresh air to the sound of The Used, despite the majority of punk-rock listeners’ detestation towards dubstep.

Another thing that stands out from Vulnerable is its lyrically expressed theme, which mostly revolves around moving on ('When there’s no road for us to follow/We’ll keep moving on') and making it through ('Change never happens by itself/It’s my time to burn/my time to shine'). One of the ballads, Together Burning Bright will definitely leave a soft spot on the fans’ hearts, as it ends the twelve-track-record with the line “Cause we are only sparks/But together burning bright.”

Vulnerable may not be the fans’ favorite record from The Used, compared to the positive worldwide reaction towards In Love and Death and Lies For The Liars. However, The Used has successfully created a record that manages to combine the electronic beats with their unmistakable signature. Furthermore, the powerful and loud tracks like Put Me Out and Now That You’re Dead effectively give a balance to the whole record. Once again, The Used has proved to the world of what they are capable of; they are everything but vulnerable.

Release date: March 26, 2012

Rating: 8/10