If Frank Iero wasn’t the man behind Leathermouth, would Epitaph be interested in releasing this record and would it have got the hype and publicity it has done? In a word, no. ‘XO’ is a decent record but it’s nothing special. Sure it will sell well – anything with the My Chemical Romance brand slapped on it will ship in the thousands, even though I imagine many in the MCR Army will pick this up once, give it a spin and put it to one side. ‘XO’ is an angry record steeped in old skool punk rock. It sounds like it was recorded in a garage. the band sound like they were brought up on a diet of bands like Black Flag and Circle Jerks. It’s nothing, at all, like MCR.
Leathermouth are a band who are really, really, really pissed off. This record flashes by in the blink of an eye as Frank spits, screams and shouts his way across 10 songs. Some of these songs are pretty damn good. ‘Catch Me If You Can’ and ‘Sunsets Are For Muggings’ are excellent songs. ‘Your Friends Are Full of Shit’ is another that flies out at you from your speakers and slaps you around the face. That particular song has some awesome bass and drum work too. But all too often I’m just left thinking the band are playing fast and just screaming for the sake of it. And ultimately they’re not as good as other bands who do this kind of thing, either past or present. I certainly think some reviews I’ve seen of this have over-egged the Frank Iero factor a little.
‘XO’ isn’t bad at all – it’s actually pretty good. But it’s not worthy of the hype and anyone expecting ‘The Black Parade Mk2’ will be very disappointed. Me? I’ll listen again, for sure.