A Skylit Drive: Adelphia

It's easy enough to chart the path of any genre fad. Just use the following five step guide we've been kind enough to present below in cut-out-keep* format.

+-----------------------------------------------------------+
|                                                           |
| (1) The innovator: a band concoct a new sound which       |
|     captures the imagination of the music buying public.  |
|                                                           |
| (2) The bandwagon: eyeful of the first band's success     |
|     and the public's appetite for more, every single      |
|     directionless and unimaginative band ape their sound  |
|                                                           |
| (3) The tail: with the market saturated with a glut of    |
|     distinctly mediocre to abysmal bands, the law of      |
|     supply and demand rears its nasty head.               |
|                                                           |
| (4) The jump off: another new fad has been born, the      |
|     scene bands now have a new home to move to, cue a     |
|     visit to the hairdressers to get the required cuts    |
|     and the 'new' genre finds itself rather deserted.     |
|                                                           |
| (5) The Omega men: the ones who (a) genuinely love the    |
|     music they are making, or (b) actually display talent |
|     within this - now deserted - genre remain with the    |
|     ship as it returns underground.                       |
|                                                           |
+-----------------------------------------------------------+

While A Skylit Drive may be guilty of being bandwagon jumpers - or inspired by the post-hardcore forefathers - Adelphia makes it clear that the boys slot quite comfortably into step five of the above guide. They've stuck around long after all of the scenesters jumped over to crunk-core, grindie, rave-rock and hip-rock and proven that despite their rather generic appeal, they've nailed their chosen genre. Nailed it right to the wall and sprayed whipped cream on top.

One could point squarely to front-man Mike Jagmin as the reason for the band's appeal. His clean vocals steer the band far away from the adolescent whines which populated the vast majority of recent pop-punk and post-hardcore acts. The formant and timbre of his voice are pleasingly thick whilst still residing in the higher registers. As such, he manages to sustain the high pitches without losing the humanity in his voice and sounding sterile, as Anthony Green and Claudio Sanchez occasionally do.

We did refer to the band being slightly in the way of generic, as such, as you may have guessed, backing up the clean vocals is Brian White with the obligatory metalcore-esque screams, although he does tend to enter the mid-register occupied by bands such as Funeral Diner, Fightstar and Blood Brothers more than sporadically. Due to the almost complete absence of low-slung, sludgy riffs, the low growls seem particularly out-of-place, surely an element which could be jettisoned easily for album number three.

There are highlights for either side of the spectrum. Those who enjoy the heavy will have "Eva the Carrier" to cling onto. It's a frantic experience akin to running blindfolded through a forest. We have the double-kick pedal, the tone of a Coheed & Cambria song on amphetamines and even odd phasing effects on the growled vocals.

Our award-for-excellence will undoubtedly go to either preceding track "Running With the Light" which illuminates further that White knows his way to a catchy vocal melody as his chimes "Is there anything left to believe in? / Go and find your own way / Hey! Get out of this town". There is also the almost exclusively soft-core effort of "Those Cannons Could Sink A Ship" which eschews dynamic theory by being 'all up, all the time' with a few instrument cut-outs thrown in for good measure.

Ultimately the paperweight which will leave A Skylit Drive's letters unread will be the band's complete absence of any stand-out or crossover appeal. Those who have already joined the Saosin fan-club or worship They're Only Chasing Safety by Under0ath will likely have a new album to explode the wonder of post-hardcore into their minds.

However, their refusal to move beyond the genre constraints and adherence to rather pointless metal-core influences will likely prove to be a lighthouse to those seeking to land. Still, it's doubtless that what the band do, they do well.

One for the generic but competent file.

* Warning: do not attempt to cut out your actual PC monitor. Those doing so will be mocked on Failblog.