Richmond, VA’s The Greater The Risk have lived a lifetime in just over a year. Since their formation in 2010, the band have released an excellent self-titled EP led by a single that shot into Purevolume’s Top Ten, seen the departure of three of the five original members, played their local Warped Tour date and recorded a follow-up EP, Say What You Never Said, that almost didn’t see the light of day thanks to the inner-band turmoil. But with new members in place and the drama in check, the EP now finds its release.

The Greater The Risk’s debut EP was a refreshingly understated diamond in the rough, but Say What You Never Said is a sharp left turn toward the sort of stiff emo-pop – bright, booming high-gloss production, chiming guitars, vocal melodies that tilt toward the grandiose – that dominated the scene from 2005-2007 or so, the kind of stuff that’s overtly (and overly) attuned to tugging on heartstrings, right down to its urging lamentation of a title. It’s a sound that has since been subsumed first by the neon pop explosion of 2008 and more recently by this years’ trend of back-to-basics scruffy pop-punk. Subsequently, what sounded fresh only a few years prior feels mostly formulaic today, and The Greater The Risk have stepped right in the middle of it. (It’s also questionable what sort of a market is left for this kind of stuff, but eh, you’ve got to follow the muse where she takes you).

It’s not that Say What You Never Said isn’t likable or solidly (if not spectacularly) crafted, but tracks like the Riot!-era-Paramore-by-numbers “Pick Your Poison” and the Jimmy Eat World-aping album closer “The Better Or The Best You Remember” feel perfunctory. (It doesn’t help that the aforementioned “Better” spends its final two minutes lost in the sort of tortuous, rambly midsection that JEW, and very few others, excel at). Singer David Kaufman, so affably straightforward on the band’s debut EP, sheds his flatly earnest tone here in favor of blandly-buffed production and ill-planned adventures in double-tracking; it’s a disappointing step backward (albeit one that may ultimately be moot; Kaufman left the band shortly before this EP’s release and has been subsequently replaced by one Daniel Castillo). In his best moments, Kaufman could be mistaken for Mae’s Dave Elkins, but the slick vocal production allows no room for the veneer of unjade-able innocence that makes Elkins’ delivery so successful.

For her part, founding member and band leader Ashley Drewes’s guitar lines chime and chug in all the right places, rarely inventive but always capable. If there’s a hidden weapon here, it’s drummer Derek Ames, who flashes at times (boldly strident at the start of album-opener “Friends And Foes”; nimble through “Count Me Out“‘s intro) without ever slipping out of “serve the song” mode.

On “The Resolution,” Kaufman croons about “Sinking ships // Just for the hell of it // With every line we break // We’re tripping over our mistakes.” He’s probably talking about a relationship gone wrong, but he might as well be singing about his band. Say What You Never Said scratches the power-pop itch, but it’s a letdown from a band that appeared capable of so much more.

★★.5/★★★★★

*This review was composed by Jesse Richman