On … Is a Real Boy, Say Anything told the ultimate coming-of-age story in a swirling storm of sex, drugs, angst and gut-wrenchingly honest rock & roll. Now the band is back with In Defense of the Genre, a wildly eclectic double album that tells the ultimate love story, complete with madness, exhilaration, depression and redemption. It’s an astonishing achievement of impeccable songwriting and raw emotion that could only spring from the brain of the band’s 23-year-old leader, Max Bemis.

“I got my first long-term girlfriend when I was 20 and that really thrust me into the human experience of dealing with other people,” Bemis says, explaining how he became obsessed with something he once considered to be contrived: boy-meets-girl, boy-loses-girl songs. “I thought if I can make a Say Anything record that’s funny and weird but still telling that story it would be awesome.”

Singer/guitarist Bemis, along with drummer Coby Linder, bassist Alex Kent, keyboardist/guitarist Parker Case, and twin guitarists Jake and Jeff Turner, have achieved that goal in the 26 songs of In Defense of the Genre, which traces one man’s attempt to find love, pursue his career while battling heartbreak, and put his life back together again (it’s loosely based on Bemis’ own tumultuous love affair). Recorded in New York at Electric Lady and in Los Angeles at the home studio of producer Brad Wood (The Smashing Pumpkins, Liz Phair, mewthoutyou, Pete Yorn) In Defense of the Genre has a vast, dramatic sonic palate that embraces the band’s indie/hardcore roots and stretches the sound in dozens of directions.