SOiL

Picture Perfect

Written by: PP on 06/11/2009 20:18:38

An interesting and a necessary starting point to understand SOiL's fifth full length "Picture Perfect" is to have a thorough look at their career starting from their mediocre debut album "Throttle Junkies" in 1999. They were signed to an indie label back then, which went bankrupt almost immediately after the release, leading to SOiL signing a deal with Sony subsidiary J Records. A couple of heavy hitting nu-metal / hard rock chart hits and two albums later, the popularity of the genre started to wane and they parted ways (read: fired) with the label, which apparently wasn't to the liking of old singer Ryan McCombs who chose to continue his mainstream path with Drowning Pool instead. What do you do as a band when you've just been fired from major label, without a vocalist, and faced with a dying genre? Most would quit, but not SOiL. Instead they hopped on the next fad and recorded a more metalcore / Gothenburg metal sounding album, "True Self", for the independent label DRT Entertainment. It was actually a rather good release, even if it saw the band abandon their roots almost completely. And now on their fifth album, SOiL are on their fourth label and probably their smallest to date.

And guess what? Metalcore's kinda dying out, so the band have gone genre shopping once again. Only this time, they've picked a dead-and-buried genre instead, probably hoping to revitalize their mainstream success with formulaic radio rock anthems like "Lesser Man". You guessed right, we're dealing with a post-grunge record for the most part - which I didn't really expect from SOiL - and there are places where I honestly thought I had accidentally put on Nickelback instead. A song like "Every Moment" references the older SOiL sound, sure, but then you have tracks like "Anymore" which basically rape Pearl Jam like there's no end. AJ Cavalier mimics Eddie Vedder's vocal delivery almost note-by-note during the bridges and the choruses, which, by the way, are so predictable it hurts. Although you'd expect rape to hurt, I guess. But if you're able to shove that aside and just accept the songs as they are: catchy, rocking mainstream hard rock / post-grunge anthems, then you'll find a bunch of tracks here to your liking.

But in all honesty, if old fans didn't give up on SOiL with "True Self", then here's where the ship is sinking fast and people are shouting "women and children first". A song like "Too Far Away" has absolutely nothing in common with the crunchy nu-metal of "Halo" or "Unreal". It's soft, it's generic, and incredibly formulaic. But yet if you weren't a SOiL fan back in the day, you'll have no problem singing along to the sticky chorus of the title track, for instance. Belonging to either camp is understandable, so I'll meet you guys half way with a

6

Download: Lesser Man, Picture Perfect
For the fans of: Nickelback, Default, Shinedown, Sevendust
Listen: Myspace

Release date 23.10.2009
AFM Records

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