Key Tracks: “Nervous Breakdown,” “End of the Underground” and “Boy”

Represent, 937! As much as they get ripped on, Hawthorne Heights did bring a lot of attention to the Dayton scene here in Ohio, and if you say you don’t know at least some of the “Ohio Is for Lovers” lyrics, I’m calling you out, liar.

I went into listening to the latest HH album hoping for some tunes reminiscent of those on 2004’s “The Silence In Black and White” to bring me excitement and nostalgia.

Instead, I found my expectations shifting with each track on Skeletons. For Hawthorne Height's fourth studio release, it’s clear that the band decided to take some major sidesteps from the box that had become the Hawthorne norm.

Interesting and unfamiliar Hawthorne musical choices included the ants-go-marching style, low vocals of “End of the Underground," the “Istanbul (Not Constantinople)” feel of the “Gravestones” verses and the synth galore, upbeat dance party of “Hollywood & Vine” that brings to mind not the band’s past associations but the style of their upcoming contemporaries. It's all an obvious step away from mere guitar-driven songs. With Skeletons the band certainly hasn’t pigeonholed itself.

However, some Hawthorne Heights signatures resurface. For instance, “Boy,” a would-be highly emotional track that vocalist JT Woodruff revealed is about his experience as a child of divorced parents, showcases heart-shatteringly desperate chorus vocals but evades its full potential with Hawthorne-signature, rhyme-focused lyrics that could be remedied with fewer trite words and more dynamic, expressive wording.

Drummer Eron Bucciarelli explained in a video posted on the band’s Myspace that the album's title, Skeletons, comes from the band’s stripping down to their purest form to face hardships. He said, “It’s about escaping from all the bullshit around you and rebuilding yourself after total devastation.”

For me, there is nothing noticeably “Hawthorne Heights” about Skeletons. The connective thread of the skeleton theme may not be enough to make the album cohesive, and the differences in songs may not be enough to call it eclectic.

So, there the skeletons of the album dangle, as they do on the band's official Web site's current layout: stuck somewhere in the middle, moving neither way more than the other.

Older Hawthorne Heights material had melodic darkening and a distinct style of breakdowns that put a spin on otherwise light music. That is something that, unfortunately, is missing from Skeletons, but that makes the new songs no less catchy than the old ones.

You can preview Skeletons now as it streams from the Hawthorne Heights Myspace page.