Any concerns about the members of
Finch playing it safe on their second album are squashed quickly. The easy route would have been to bang out a near-exact replica of the emo-with-a-pop-edge approach of their 2002 debut,
What It Is to Burn. Instead, the Golden State quintet started messing with denser and more challenging riffs and odd time changes. As a result,
Finch's pop-punk tendencies are tamped down in favor of stop-and-start cadences like those that dot the jittery "Ink," along with the atypical swinging touch applied by new drummer Marc Allen. Guitarists Randy Strohmeyer and Alex Linares are more than up to these radical stylistic shifts, bobbing and weaving from cleanly plucked chords to choppier, more distorted lines within the span of a few bars, as on the challenging "Miro." Thankfully,
Finch's aggressive tendencies continue to be at the front and center of their sound, as one listen to the volcanic opener "Insomniatic Meat" confirms. With such intriguing stylistic shifts permeating it,
Say Hello to Sunshine is an outing whose rewards come via repeated listening.