Trust Us We Lie

A Heartwell Ending have a knack for snarky song titles ("One More Song for Your Myspace Page" and "There's Two R's in 'Sorry,' but One R in 'Whore'") and the usual pop-emo dynamics of tense verses that explode into anthemic choruses, but it's hard for anyone who has already heard Fall Out Boy or Taking Back Sunday to find much that's memorable about Trust Us, We Lie. The main thing A Heartwell Ending have in their favor is Justin Allen, a genuinely good singer who sounds unfairly constrained by the generally pedestrian songs. Giving the somewhat clichéd romantic angst and social frustration lyrics as much passion as he can without tipping over into the usual emo whines, Allen does the best he can with what he's given. Similarly, keyboardist William Schuck can do little more than add a few catchy but superfluous synth parts to songs that sound like they were written and arranged before the otherwise guitar-based band decided they wanted a keyboard player. Boring and ordinary rather than genuinely bad, Trust Us, We Lie is mostly a whole lot of nothing special.