SPILL ALBUM REVIEW: THE USED – TOXIC POSITIVITY

The Used
Toxic Positivity
Big Noise

For a group that has a career spanning over 20 years, ingenuity and relevancy can prove insurmountable, especially when previous records have held such a warm spot in the hearts of millions of fans. This seemingly arduous task can lead to overthinking, overcomplication, or in some cases oversimplification. For the Used’s 10th studio album, Toxic Positivity, the band chose a marathon writing and recording approach, allowing the record to act as a direct audible IV between the emotional honesty the band is known for, and the musical arrangement that connects everything for the listener in a near tangible way.

Vocalist Bert McCracken says that Toxic Positivity contains their most sincere songs ever written, and as a longtime fan, this writer would have to agree. The opener, “Worst I’ve Ever Been”, is a bleak portrayal of an all time low, the inability to help those around you while you’re currently failing yourself, felt from the start with a heavy punch of guitar to set the stage. From that beginning, we get a good snapshot of the sonic direction of the record. We have structures and progressions that the band is known for, with throwback elements in the core-driven bridge in “Cherry” while also leaning into more pop and dreamlike production with tracks like “I Hate Everybody” and “Giving Up.” There are even more surprises on the album with some tracks leaning into more of a theatrical sensibility that highlight McCracken’s vocal performance like “Dopamine” but songs like “Pinky Swear” are those moments of intense heaviness that show how guitarist Joey Bradford can really dial in to the emotional weight of the lyrics.

The lyrical messages can be pained in their transparency, but the album flows like a concept record, bringing us both sides of mental turmoil and showing the trek between them. The entire band sounds more connected than ever and digs into tones that we have come to expect from them, while bringing in grandiose ideas and bits of harsh dissonance speckled throughout to make this late-career record one of their absolute bests. Fun, catchy, heavy, melodic, and incredibly, incredibly pained.

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