THE USED Schallplatten & CDs

Review: For those in the know, Utah band The Used's second studio album is peak screamo. In Love and Death (2004) now hears a defining 20th anniversary release, with an unusual listening back on raw aughts emocore intensity with brutal, experimental studio-ready sound design touches. Created amid personal tragedy - lead singer Bert McCracken's girlfriend's death - the album helped elute and distil pain on the part of the band's frontman. Yet this didn't stop internecine tensions from bubbling over, though The Used used them: disagreements with their producer are only said to have added to the album's felt onslaught. Signature heavy, chaotic and piano-driven ballads, as on 'I Caught Fire' and 'Cut Up Angels', signal a mood of ultimate, seraphic abomination, bloody abreaction. Though not a UK hit, hundreds of thousands of copies were, cementing In Love and Death as The Used's most impactful and commercially successful work.