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Basically this album is outdated. It’s not a bad album, but the age of the down-and-out guy in a band singing about how much it sucks to be him is gone. There are a few guys out there singing about it, but it gets a little obnoxious. That’s not the only reason the album is outdated; Smile Empty Soul has done virtually no growth since their debut album. They’re basically the same band they were six years ago when “Bottom of a Bottle” came out. In a lot of ways their debut album is more current than their new album was, basically from listening through “Vultures” you can learn how important a healthy production budget is to bands like this.There are good moments on this album, mainly “The Hit” where the front-man Sean Danielson sings with an incredible amount of spite towards his former employers at his old record label. That anger is so intense that it’s virtually the only relatable moment on the record. Smile Empty Soul is basically a better version of a band like Edgewater. They were a great band on a major label, but on an independent scale, they just don’t have the right features to be successful.Smile Empty Soul fans might love this album, but that doesn’t change the fact that this album shows absolutely no growth from their previous releases, it can’t hold up on an independent scale, and in a lot of ways it’s a giant step backwards for the band. This would have been a great release in 2000 or 2002, but with the way that music has grown and evolved over the past five years a band like Smile Empty Soul really doesn’t stand to survive.