Emo ranks up there with speed metal as a contemporary musical style that has a strictly enforced set of stylistic parameters that it's bad form to push against. Maryland teens Dangerous Summer (named after Ernest Hemingway's bullfighting book) are entirely proficient at their brand of mainstream alterna-rock emo, but anyone who has heard more than one other band in this style will notice within 30 seconds of opening track "I Will Stay" that this quartet hasn't got a single original idea. Every emo cliché is present and accounted for, right down to
Cody Payne's upwards-modulating vocals on the choruses. However, Dangerous Summer do this sort of thing quite well, and those who don't consider originality or inventiveness a prerequisite for enjoyment of the style will likely get behind this adequate but unspectacular EP. ~ Stewart Mason