★★★
All it takes is the first few seconds of screeching guitar lines that drop into the incessant chug of post-hardcore riffage and it feels like 2009 all over again.
Yet as soon as the vocals kick in on ‘The Silver String’, the opening track from Saosin’s first offering in seven years, you realise there is just one major difference.
No, it’s not a minute person with a miniscule voice box squeaking melodically at you. Nor is it Cove Reber, Saosin’s second vocalist. Original dude and Circa Survive frontman Anthony Green has returned to the fold, and throughout this album there are moments where that decision seems plausible.
Tracks like ‘Count Back From Ten’, with its chorus in equal parts screaming and singing, slower ballad ‘Sore Distress’ and the chugging, bombastic sound of ‘Illusion & Control’ see a sweet fusion between their urgent sounds and Green’s tender yet whiny vocal range.
But a major theme throughout this album is the feeling of mismatch between him and the heavy instruments that back him up.
Call me Camp Cove, but these shortfalls add up to a product that doesn’t quite hit the mark.
Saosin’sAlong The Shadowis available thorugh Epitaph.
