Review Summary: Generic metalcore + Danzig X Jesus = Sinai Beach
Metalcore is a fickle genre of music. In the last few years, it has become so oversaturated with bands that sound exactly alike. Any generic band could play a song by another generic band and no one would blink an eye. As a result, several bands starting adding gimmicks to their sound. Keyboards, dual singers, concept albums, samples, etc. This same problem affects every aspect Sinai Beach.
For the most part Sinai Beach have every aspect of the genre down. Chugging breakdowns, double kick drumming, constipated vocals. The band knows this sound in and out, and flaunt it on every song on the album. And thus is the problem first problem with the CD. Every song on here sound exactly the same as the others. You could take the main riff out of “Hell Blaze” and switch it with the main riff of “Return to Dust” and it would work perfectly. This goes for the rest of the album as well. All the riffs on the album border nu-metal and focuses entirely on being “heavy”. As such there’s no sense of variety or song craft on this album that differs from any other band. In a word the music is faceless.
To give them a little credit, Sinai Beach do try to add some interesting gimmicks to their sound. When CJ sings, he has a very Danzig quality in his voice. While this does work to their advantage, CJ isn’t in key all the time and can end up sounding pretty messy. Also, they inject some slight electronic influences in their music here and there, but it’s too minimal to notice and seems tacked on at the last second to give the album flavour.
I could ramble on and on about the inconsistencies of this album and even start tearing apart the lyrics (ok, I understand Jesus is pretty cool, but come on. The lyrics here are laughable), but at the end of the day when looking back at this album, it really isn’t as horrible or terrible as I have made it out to be. It’s just nothing you haven’t heard done ten times better before.
