Grain - Open Your Eyes
by James

The only thing I can really think to say about this CD is it is neither really bad nor really good. There are a few stellar moments on a few decent songs, but overall, there just isn't anything special here. When Grain gets heavy, they do well, but their clean, melodic moments really drag the rest of the album down. The clean vocals are almost monotone sounding with no passion behind them, whatsoever, whereas the screaming actually sounds like he is genuinely pissed off. I'm a big believer in sticking to what you do best and what these guys do best is rock out. Hate Them In Return is a catchy heavy track and is probably my favorite because of its absence of clean vocals. I do hate to harp on that, but after the first couple of listens, I found myself skipping the clean, melodic tracks that have only clean vocals.

I do acknowledge that this is not a bad first effort from a band, but you can't use “it's our first album” as an excuse for subpar work. I do see some potential here, because there are more than a few cool riffs on this album. The drums stay fairly interesting, which is nice, as well. I think if they work on the vocals, everything else will fall into place.