Review Summary: Radio rock almost done right.
Although an over saturated and almost completely hollowed out shell of a genre, radio rock can still impress at times. It's easy listening with distortion, if anything else. Shorter songs with a big catchy chorus, and the occasional guitar solo, if you're lucky. Most of the time, the amount of substance found in radio rock is paper thin at best. We've heard the same angst driven chorus a hundred times. The same ballad about a break up with a girl who stamped on your heart and called you out as trash 'cause you treated her wrongly. It's literally all been done before, so my question is, what exactly does Saint Asonia do differently to stand out from a big, big crowd? Let's be honest here; not much.
Adam Gontier's vocals in Three Days Grace ranged from fantastic to frustrating, with certain songs evoking so much more raw emotion than others, seemingly feeding off Gontier's mere interest in the song, and the same remains here. 'Better Place' drags with generic dull mediocrity, whereas 'Dying Slowly' and 'Trying To Catch Up With The World' show the singer at his best. The lyrics also fall into this pitfall - at times sounding so uninspired it's almost cringe worthy. But hey, at least they're better than anything on
Human.
The instrumentation on the album also remains a mixed bag. The drums do the job, and the bass, whenever audible, served it's purpose. The only real notable factor here are the guitars: Mike Mushok does a fantastic job here. His tone is big, beefy, and brings an edge to a song like 'Let Me Live My Life' that was otherwise lacking in general umph. The album also contains a fairly generous amount of solos for radio rock, which is always a nice bonus.
Honestly, the band strikes me as something well rounded, an experienced act that knows exactly what they want to create, but in the process of things coming together, and still feeling the sting of his departure from TDG, Adam Gontier and Co barely lift off the ground with this release. It feels too samey at times. Too generic in certain moments. That's not to say it wasn't enjoyable, I've given the album a few spins and it was fun to hear Gontier back in action, but the overall feeling of the album barely gets past a response of 'that was okay.'
I'm hopeful for Saint Asonia though. The band's members have enough experience to create something fresh and different, but whether or not they actually want to is another matter. If Gontier and Co are happy with just making the same radio rock album over and over, then Saint Asonia will likely just fade into bland obscurity. Here's to hoping for a more promising second album in the future, bringing Saint Asonia their own identity, and putting them in a 'better place' than where they are now.
