Alamance – In The Moment

You know an album just isn’t worth your time if sitting through it feels like an obligation.  It’s like eating a tasteless desert.  Desert is supposed to be a treat, and indulging in it is meant to satisfy the senses.  If it can’t live up to expectations, you’re left with is a bunch of wasted calories.  This is much like how I feel when tuning in to Alamance’s debut EP, In The Moment.  Track after track I’m reminded that I could be using these twenty-eight minutes to listen to something far more satisfying.

The fact is, In The Moment just doesn’t offer anything substantial.  Vocalist Josh Sorhagan has a competent but forgettable, made-for-radio voice that lands somewhere between the high pitch of power pop acts like Hit The Lights, and more mature pop rock song writers like Butch Walker.  The combination searches for that elusive middle ground, but misses the mark.  Compounding matters, the rest of the band never jumps in to spice things up, instead providing equally uneventful song structures.  Tracks like “Tonight” take it slow, providing safe melodies within pure convention.  Sure, they try adding a piano here and there (and even a few hardcore yelps in “Circles”), aiming for a sense of escalation during obligatory bridges, but there’s nothing here you haven’t heard before.

For that matter, from a lyrical perspective, the band has absolutely nothing new to say.  Songs like “I Believe” detail vague and overdone love stories (“she and I/spent all last summer with dreams in our eyes/we had it all back then/a romance without end”), those like “Blaming You” come filled with breakup songs infused with eye rollers like “I’m left to face the world alone,” and “Right Where I Want You” comes complete with stories of low self esteem and an angering protagonist destined to repeat the same mistakes time and again (“I’ve got you right where I want you/playing games with your heart in my hands/and something tells me I’m never going to get it right”).  It’s as if the boys in Alamance have nothing to say, but they say it anyway.  Now I’ve heard worse – Jesse Labelle, I’m looking at you – but at the same time we’ve all heard far better.

But much like a bland but edible desert, In The Moment is still digestible.  The songs are formally competent, and the melodies tightly contained.  Nothing feels terribly offensive, but regardless of the angle – vocals, instrumentals, lyrics – the album just fails to inspire or excite.  In The Moment may be a debut, but unless Alamance makes some drastic changes, it will also likely be an end.