Reggie and the Full Effect

Wild rumors are standard-issue for the intentionally enigmatic Reggie and the Full Effect. But if the latest Internet scuttlebutt is true, Last Stop: Crappy Town is KC-native James Dewees' (meaning the entire band's) final album before he goes full time as the keyboardist for My Chemical Romance. Such a change might explain why the unexpectedly serious Crappy sounds exactly like the album that a former hardcore drummer (Coalesce) and emo granddaddy (Get Up Kids) might make right before diving headfirst for the MTV spotlight. As its name suggests, this concept album traces the New York subway system, tunneling track by track into the depths of Brooklyn. Dewees navigates the journey brilliantly, gliding from harmonic opener "G" to the downright eerie finale, "N." And unlike previous albums, there's not a tongue-in-cheek Finnish metal band anywhere in sight. If this is what Reggie's been holding back for the past decade, the joke's been on us all along.