Forest Fire is Hear's third album, after their multi-platinum debut Equals Bracket and their commercial flop, Lack of Respect. It strays from their previous pop-punk records, being more depressing, dark, and noisy. It begins with the quiet song "A New Control" which features a beautiful theremin composition, a first for the band. It fades into the pure rock of "14 of 87". The style of this track is similar to Hear's previous record except for the distortion, screaming, and lyrics about death. It ends mid-line and switches to the song "Misery of You", which is white noise backed with distorted banjo. Layered over top of it is dozens of voices whispering. At the end, a robot utters one word, "burning". "Shine" begins an obvious single, but it gets stranger and stranger and then, six minutes into it, all that you can hear for the remaining two minutes is crackling flames. "Forest Fire" is the first single, most likely because it sounds like the pop-punk of the first album that was so successful. Yet it was different. The lyrics in "Forest Fire" are about people burning a forest and the feelings of the inhabitants of the forest afterwards. It is a sad song, but the album as a cohesive entity is much more depressing. "Ripping You Off" is a joke. It is three full minutes of cackling, proving that the band just ripped you off. Track 7, "The Media", is similar in style to "14 of 87", but it's about the negative effects of the media. "Untitled" is a metaphorical song about lossy media compression. Its hidden meaning is that we are losing a lot by moving into big cities. "Spirits of the Dark" is the epic of the album, with a 27 minute length. It is quiet and slow for many minutes, fading in to an instrumental part where the whole band sings about the end of the world in harmony. Then an orchestra and two guitars suddenly start playing, fusing punk and orchestral music in a perfect balance of both. And as suddenly as it began, it ends.
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