Skeletons

Hawthorne Heights emerge from a self-imposed isolation with their eagerly awaited debut album, produced by Howard Benson (Three Days Grace, Daughtry, My Chemical Romance) at his Bay 7 Studios in Valley Village. It's an unflinching look at what has brought them to this place, executed with a firm desire to make the best of what they see as an opportunity for renewal by expanding their musical palette. Sure, there's the anthemic hard rock of "Bring You Back," with its aching feelings of loss, but there's also the funk-driven '80s new wave noir feel of "Nervous Breakdown," which describes the insanity of having your lives in the hands of the legal system, the eerie Johnny Cash country shuffle of "Gravestones," with Micah Carli manning the pedal steel guitar, the pop harmonies of "Picket Fences," the unsparing look at a recession-wracked heartland and the epic emotional scope of "Boy," JT Woodruff's autobiographical look back at a childhood in which his family was abandoned by an alcoholic father.