SUBURBA

It has been said that there are three things wrong with rock music, currently: One, most bands sacrifice originality for safe marketability. Two, most bands place fashion over great songwriting. Three, most bands think production trumps heart.

But then, House of Heroes is not most bands. And if you had to pick three characteristics to describe this, their opus, you would have to say it is fearless, uncompromising, and heartfelt. Because "Suburba" is an album like nothing else you will hear today. And for that fact alone, it is a victory of epic proportions.

Endlessly poppy, galactically ambitious, and dripping with honest, candid emotion, this is what a rock record is supposed to sound like. This is what a rock record is supposed to feel like. Harkening back to days when music was wide-eyed and meant a whole lot more. Think classic Bruce Springsteen and Tom Petty, The Who, E.L.O. with a touch of Meatloaf. That's right, Meatloaf. Broad and anthemic at certain moments, yet vulnerable and intimate at others. There are driving, heavy tracks, as well as harmonic ballads.

"This record is about growing up in middle class suburbia," states Skipper. "It's about fighting for your own identity in the face of society's ideas about love, money, religion and power. It's about having big dreams and going after them with reckless abandon,yet having to reconcile the fact that things aren't always going to go your way. And it's about realizing, throughout all of it, that God is real and is the one constant among all the variables of life."