Saosin - Saosin

Author's product rating:   

Originality	Average
Lyrics	Standard
Quality and consistency of tracks	Mixed
How does it compare to the artist's other releases	Average
Value for Money	Satisfactory

Advantages:	cool vocals, decent sound .  .  .
Disadvantages:	.  .  . thats played to over kill, a lack of anything different, too one track minded .

Recommend to potential buyers:

no

Full review

Background:
I was first told of this band about 6 years ago when some random guy who was on my msn (I really do mean random) sent me a Saosin track (no idea what it was) and told me to listen. Despite not being a huge fan the bands name have been etched into my head for all them years ano then magically I foud their eponymous album for sale at Fat Bobs in a 3 for £10 deal (got 2 Goldfinger albums with this disk).

So who are Saosin?
I wish the American guy had told me, rather than sending me a so-so track and telling me they were awesome. Turns out the band are a Californian based band formed in 2003 (so 6 years does seem about right tbh), and are a five piece consisting of vocalist Cove Reber, guitarists Beau Burchell and Justin Shekoski, bassist Chris Sorenson and drummer Alex Rodriguez.
However the original vocalist was Anthony Green who was with the band until he quit in 2004 to form Circa Survive with Cove taking over the role after sending in an audition tape of him singing "Mookie's Last Christmas", which sounded incredibly like Greens original vocals.

So what do they sound like?
Well the band are a post-hardcore/emo band, with a very distinct vocal style (under both singers). With a high sharp and rather piercing vocal that sounds unique due to it's almost falsetto basis. from what I'm findiing is a poor somparision, Raine Maida's (Our Lady Peace's early work) about the closest I can think of to a good comparision, and even thats not very good.

Have they done anything before?
Well this was their debut studio album released in September of 2006, made mainly from re-do demo's of the band, and tracks taken from the previous 2 EP's by the band (Translating the Name and Saosin").

Will I have heard anything from the album?
Well the bands "Collapse"" was featured in Burnout Dominator, Burout Paridise and the OST to Saw IV. which is the onl;y media in which I'd personally have seen them in.

So finally onto the album well (unlike most of my other ones) I'm not going to review every track from the album. For the simple reason many of them seem relatively similar, theres a complete lack of imagination or splintered direction in the album, the songs are all sad lyically and dominated by the vocals over a strong guitar sound. I'm apparently on track 9 as I write this and yet it's all seemed realtively like one long track rather than 9n sepereate pieces. Where as we listen to a really good singer who mixes there album up with different sounds, this has done the opposite and with little space between the tracks it's missed the most important facet of any album, and thats to make the songs indiviual.

Any album that makes the 9th song sound the same as the first, is falling at the first hurdle, even if it's incredibly easy to listen to (which sadly with hand on heart, this isn't) it's lacking the sort of variation needed of any good album. When al album like this comes along, with lyrics that are fairly good and a vocal that stands up on it's own on a track by track basis, you just wish the band had tried to change something musically through out rather than have an album of guitar dominated tracks with a brilliant (it yet over longingly unchanged) vocal. The album over all sounds fine, but with 12 fine yet too similar tracks, the album then falls on it's back.

Sadly this is the greatest disappointment of an other wise possibly good album, the fact is that on the whole, you may as well bought a single for all thats on here. Theres 1 song, then another, then another all almost identical, it's almost like the band got an identikit song and just changed little bits then put it on an album. Hardly a wonder teh band never broke into the main stream, with things like this out there. It's obvious the band have talent, but if they were to put it to better uses musically they really could be something, instead they put their effort into ripping themselves off musically, what a shame to be honest. Whilst a band with a vocalist as uniquely excellent as this should be able to explore different avenues rather than the single minded one they do go down, you can't give the album more than a 2 out of 5 rating. A real shame as I want to like the band and the music, but the album just doesn't do enough for me when put up against the likes of Grace (Jeff Buckley) Happiness is not a fish (Our Lady Peace) in the rocky the genre that this would fall under the umbrella of. a real shame.