Say Anything ‎- Oliver Appropriate (2019)

Max Bemis loves a good story. The Say Anything frontman has written eight albums, the beginnings of a rock opera, and various comic books, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. With his eighth album, Bemis shows us yet again his passion for writing and storytelling.

Billed as the band’s final album and a sequel to their 2005 pop punk classic …Is A Real Boy, Oliver Appropriate is a 34-minute tale of the album’s namesake and supposed subject of …Is A Real Boy’s career loss and realization of his sexuality, subsequently resulting in murder-suicide.

Individually, most songs on this album are solid, but as a whole the story comes off as slightly juvenile. It is a generic tale of unrequited love with the twist that the main character, Oliver, realizes he is gay after a one-night-stand with a man, played by Keuhn. After admitting to himself and “Story Karl” he in fact is gay and is in love with him, “Story Karl” tells Oliver he is actually in love with someone else. Instead of coming to terms with his sexuality and moving on, he commits murder-suicide with the man that didn’t return his affection.