Sinch – Clearing The Channel

The worst thing a band member can hear is “Hey, you guys were alright;” because, how often do you remember bands who are “alright”? Even if you hate a band, you will still remember them – you may not like them, but you will remember them. They have made an impression on you, and if anyone ever asks about them, you’ll know what to say. But how often do you remember the mediocre? The average? The generic? Or the alright bands? Sadly, you remember them rarely as they are always quite forgetful. Sinch is the perfect proof of that and although their new CD, Clearing The Channel, is alright, two weeks down the road I will have forgotten all about it.

Sinch do everything they need to do to create the perfect modern rock album, but don’t got a step further. Meaning that it misses that certain kick that wakes up the listener and drills the CD in their mind. Imagine a slightly more technical and atmospheric version of Switchfoot or Submersed and you will picture Clearing The Channel; and although they don’t anything really wrong, the slow modern rock formula is nothing we haven’t heard before. They even have the necessary semi-acoustic song Snails thrown in there for good measure.

Songs like Identity Theft, The Last Scene and Hydroplane contain enough umph to energize the listener a bit, but the rest of the album seems to meld into one giant song that never ends. It gets to the point where you think you’ll be on track 6 by now but rather still on track 2; or think you’re on track 4, but are already on track 8. There’s very little in the songs that differentiates them from one another, making it that much harder for something to stick out. I mean, it took four listens before I even realized that Vanishing Act was a 3 minute long instrumental, and I only found that when randomly skipping around the album.

Sinch fits into the “alright” band category. They aren’t bad, but they aren’t that good either – which means they are very forgetful and although Clearing The Channel could supply a few listens worth of entertainment it definitely won’t last long in the long haul.