Hawthorne Heights: Fragile Future : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

For their first two albums, Ohio pop-punkers Hawthorne Heights followed the Noble Emo Path, deriving their high-pitched whimpers from the brand of heartache prevalent in high school cafeterias. But then real pain hit hard: guitarist-singer Casey Calvert — who provided the band's anguished screeches — died after an accidental prescription overdose in 2007. On Fragile Future, Hawthorne Heights are in recovery, hanging tight to the polished post-hardcore that made them chart stars. Though tragedy hasn't broadened their buoyant rock, it's provided an ominous lens for their lyrics, which address their music biz woes on punchy opener "The Business of Paper Stars," but mostly laser in on love with a new urgency ("I need you more right now than I ever did," JT Woodruff sings convincingly on "Somewhere in Between"). Absent of Calvert's throaty bellows, Woodruff's crisp voice is left completely naked, and he preens like Tom DeLonge on theatrically whiney relationship songs like "Desperation." But the whole band softens for two tracks about Calvert, the touching tribute "Four Become One" and "Disaster," a tempo-shifting plea for closure. The music may not have matured, but the musicians have.