Saosin - In Search of Solid Ground [Album]

Virgin Records

October 13, 2009, 09:05 PM

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For bands releasing new material, the roll of the reviewer’s dice can be a cruel one, and for reviewers too. I didn’t ask or want to review the new album from Saosin but all part of the pleasure of being an Altsounds.com reviewer is on occasion getting handed a random assignment and through it discovering great new music. Unfortunately as you will see I found this particular assignment more a chore than a pleasure. Now before Saosin fans gang together and issue a fatwa on my head, let me suggest this might say more about me than Saosin or their music.

Saosin are a Southern Californian quintet who have toured with AFI, Avenge Sevenfold, Incubus, My Chemical Romance, Taking Back Sunday and Underoath. So you know what territory we are in. “In Search Of Solid Ground” is their second album, the follow-up to their eponymous 2006 debut. There seems to be a split of opinions as to whether Cove Reber’s vocals on this album are an improvement or not since the debut. There’s also an earlier camp that thinks he will never, on either album, or ever at all, match the vocal skills of original singer Anthony Green, who departed in 2004 before the major label signing. However this is a history or debate that means little to me. I am coming to this album without that baggage / knowledge. So I’m taking “In Search of Solid Ground” at face value and I’m finding it lacking.

Opener 'I Keep My Secrets Safe' is a promising, energetic start with a furious screaming section for the bridge plus propulsive, thundering drums in full effect and occasional noisy power-chord guitar-work. But thereafter the album doesn’t play to any of these - small - strengths. The rest becomes - to a neutral - pretty unremarkable, formulaic and quite dull. Throwing in a change of pace like ballad 'The Alarming Sounds of A Still Small Voice' doesn’t revive or rescue it. It’s pretty safe radio-rock (listen to 'Changing' and tell me it’s not), not the ‘nuanced’ and ‘brawny’ post-hardcore I was led to expect. The finale is the eight and half minute 'Firelies (Light Messengers).' My final hope - could Saosin attempt something ambitious or remarkable with this? Imagine the multiplicity of sounds, the audacious grandeur, the sheer variety and range that could be brought to play here. No - we get a brooding, stretched-out lament that loses my attention after two minutes.

Saosin means “small heart” in Chinese, a term derived from a 15th century proverb about fathers advising their sons who were being married off for money not to get emotionally involved with their brides. Sorry Saosin, you may rock hard but there ain’t no emotional involvement between us. But you dear reader, should form your opinion to see whether Saosin have been dealt a cruel blow by an unfortunate tumble of the reviewer’s dice.

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