the beautiful life

this is who you are

'Assuming the album title is intended to reflect back on "who" the band is, and not a mass grouping of who their fans are, this is the best work to date with which The Beautiful Mistake can use to describe themselves.

With their previous release, "Light a Match, For I Deserve to Burn," the band was dumped into the generic screamo pit. Granted, the album title didn't help matters much, but the band was just in its formative stages. They were learning, growing, expanding. They were making their mistakes, regardless of the mistakes' aesthetic qualities, and figuring out their boundaries.

Well, they must have figured out a good deal prior to heading into the recording studio to work on their new album, "This Is Who You Are," for the Militia Group. The inexperience of being a freshman is gone; the sophomore slump has been eluded. On this release, the band takes the helm confidently and in earnest. Quickly, they are becoming veterans.

In the past, the band was compared to some insulting equivalent of a Thursday- or Thrice-wannabe band. Now, it's safe to say the new album puts them on par - at the very least - with what has come to be known as that two-band genre.

The Beautiful Mistake is forging ahead and further defining themselves. If the trend continues, who they are now is not who they will be by the next release. This will be a thing of the past, a stepping-stone to a higher ground.