Morian – Sentinals of the Sun – Thoroughly Generic – 3.5/10

The phrase ‘by the book’ was created for bands like this. Sentinals of the Sun is about as generic and safe as musically possible to the point that every single song on the album sounds exactly alike. While listening to it, I sometimes didn’t even realize that one song had ended and the next begun, and was surprised when I noticed the album had restarted. Every track is tailor-made for radio acceptability and appeal to the lowest common denominator. Certainly, this doesn’t make it a bad album. The songwriting is tight enough and it’s not a terrible formula – but it is still a formula through and through. People who listen to alternative rock radio and watch MTV will definitely be impressed, but for anyone who takes music seriously the album is laughable.

Tell me if you’ve heard songs like this before, a perfect 16 counts of 4 chords for a verse, a slightly more energetic chorus with some piano overlays, and a very simplistic but catchy solo thrown in. This is every song. Worse yet there is almost no variety in terms of tempo and length. Most of the songs are mid-tempo and around 4 minutes long, usually alternating between heavier and softer within the song like you’d expect from your rock alternative. the style is a little bit gothic and industrial, but honestly that’s just like saying anything with airy keyboards is gothic and industrial. If you pulled out the keyboards there would be nothing to make this more than just heavy rock. That said the keyboards do work for atmosphere but it’s still the same damn atmosphere in every track.

Making songs that sound similar isn’t such a bad thing, and even generic radio bands manage to have a song or two on their albums that stick out, but Sentinals of the Sun has nothing of the sort. For the first two songs I thought it was pretty decent but then by the fifth song I had just gotten tired of hearing it over and over again. I could easily have played one song on repeat for eleven rounds and it would have had the same effect – a mediocre song that only gets less impressive with each listen. Fans of the kind of pop-rock you see on the radio will eat this shit up, but people who take music seriously are advised to stay far, far away.

Originally posted on http://www.metal-archives.com/