Customer Reviews

Two Tongues

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Say Anything is my favorite band, so when I heard Max Bemis was doing a side-project with his friend Chris Conley (Saves The Day), I was excited, but nervous. I love Max Bemis, but I've never been a fan of Saves the Day, specifically because I didn't really like Conley's voice.

However, Bemis and Conley have a way to bring out the best in each other. I have probably listened to this CD 20+ times since I bought it and still, it's a great investment. This is probably one of my favorite CDs of all time.

If you're a fan of either Say Anything or Saves the Day, buy this album. I've been listening to it for years. It's awesome.

Not all the songs are fantastic, but the majority are IMO. It's cool to see the connection between Max Bemis and and Chris Connely. I can't wait for the next CD, if they make one that is. Lol. Buy this album so they will.

If you're a fan of either Say Anything or Saves the Day, you'll want to pick this gem up. Max and Chris do a great job of trading of vocal lines and working each others signature singing styles into each song. I would say the stand out track for me is "Crawl" which begins with Max's agonized yell and has a great emotional chorus from Chris. I hope these two can find more time to work together inbetween albums as I would love to hear them together again.

I grew up on saves the day and have always admired max bemis work in say anything so when i found out these two were working on a project i was impressed and excited. Chris conely of STD and Max bemis are both favored lyric writers of mine and there work on two tongues is full of imagery & insightfulness. One of the best collaboration in alternative music their ideas and styles work perfectly together and should satisfy any STD and SA fan. Such a genius idea for these two to work on music together.

This release is bound to be overshadowed by future and past Say Anything/STD (haha) releases, but this is some of the best work Chris Connely has and will ever do do. I'm not really a big Say Anything/Max Bemis fan, but on this record I was very impressed. It's not a predictable
generic sound here (call it indie, or what you want), and the way the two vocalists play off each other is great. I haven't been listening to too many new "scene" albums recently, but this one has pulled me back in.

Being a huge Saves the Day fan, I had to buy this album, and I was not at all disappointed with it. The back and forth vocals with Chris Conely of Saves the Day and Max Bemis of Say Anything work really well. I particularly like "Wowee Zowee" and "Try Not to Save Me." Especially if you are a fan of either band, I would definitely check this album out.

I'm a huge Say Anything fan, though admittedly I'm completely unfamiliar with Saves the Day. That said, I was thrilled with the idea of this collaboration (especially after hearing the song Crawl, which was posted on the band's Myspace) and couldn't wait for this CD.

After finally getting it I was a bit disappointed. But I'll get to that in a bit. First and foremost, Max Bemis is at the top of his game with his vocals, (Chris Conley does a great job too,) and the rest of the band formed here (made up of 2 people from each band) plays very well together. Lyrics, written by Max and Chris, are strong throughout. This is definitely NOT a Say Anything CD in style, as it features no profanity and also significantly more up-beat lyrics. This is a side project and everyone involved does their best to make sure that it doesn't sound like a clone of their other work, which is a great thing. It does sound a bit closer to the heavier In Defense of the Genre than Is a Real Boy, for Say Anything fans, though it's even less accessible and "indie" than that CD.

That said, some of the songs on here, like "Crawl," "Tremors," and "If I Can Make You Do Things" (Especially this one) stand up well with some of Say Anything's best, and songs like "Dead Lizard," "Silly Game," "Wowee Zowee" "Come On" and "Interlude" are good fun.

But the problem with this CD is that aside from those songs, there's just not much else I found to be truly good. "Don't You Want To Come Home" ended up being way too "emo" for my taste, and songs like "Alice," "Try Not To Save Me" and "Back Against the Wall" just didn't seem to have any sort of hook that I could grasp onto. And ending the CD with a Ween cover ("Even If You Don't") just didn't seem like a good choice, and it ends the CD on the exact opposite of a "powerful note." So that leaves about half a great CD and half a CD that I just couldn't get into.

What may have helped would have been some direction. We have a song here called "Interlude," that's great but doesn't seem to fit in with the CD at all; it's sung very well by Sherri DuPree, but doesn't connect much with the rest of the CD. For example, Hayley Williams' role on "The Church Channel" for in Defense of the Genre was brought back at the end, as she "finished" the story up at the end of the CD on "Plea." Two Tongues has nothing like that, no sense of closure to this story. Just a series of songs.

But it's an interesting one and about half of this CD's so good that it should definitely be checked out by fans of the genre or these bands. Unfortunately the other half, I found, was pretty bad and the CD's also a bit short, clocking in at only around 35 minutes. I wish they worked a bit harder on some of these songs but like I said, this is a cool CD worth a listen. Just not nearly as good as Say Anything's albums.

Seriously though, this is a spectacular album, especially if your a fan of Say Anything and/or Saves the Day. So you know ahead of time, Max Bemis (Say Anything) and Chris Conley (Saves the Day) both play an equal amount in the vocals of this album. Some may think that it's too much and doesn't mix well, but I believe that it's the perfect mixture. Once you listen to and understand the lyrics, you will see that the duet is in a sense telling a story or act out a conversation at present time. They go from playing characters in a relationship, in a friendship or being a witness to different scenes. Overall I love this album and hope plenty of people gives it a listen.

Being a huge Saves the Day fan, especially of course Chris Conley, I was stolked to hear he was doing something a new band in the pop punk scene and was pretty interested to hear what it would sound like. The first single "Crawl" was pretty sick, with a flavor of a kind of mid 90's emo. Then the song Wowee Zowee appeared on there Myspace and then I thought, "Well, hopefully the rest of the cd is not like this".
Thankfully it wasn't, because that would have called for one star. Still, the whole cd felt kind of rushed and half assed to be honest. It was almost like a fight between Conley and Bemis between having good chord progressions and having crappy power punk progressions. Chris Conley is known for his very Paul Mccartney like chord progressions and melodies, as for Max Bemis, I don't really know to much about him. At times their voices sound crappy together. There's a random song in the middle with a girl singing in which she doesn't get credit for, probably because it wasn't that good of a song.
The last thing that bothered me were the lyrics. I felt bad for Max Bemis' girlfriend when I was listening to it because the songs sound like they care a little bit too much about each other. Chris sings as if serenading to Bemis I want to reach into you
I want to hold you here. The cover song stinks. There's a few cool riffs and a few songs with good chord progressions but overall, i would only get it for the point of having a cd by a favorite artist and if neither of them are, then i wouldn't get it