Review Summary: You shouldn't sing while you're eating.
If there's one musical genre which I can say I know a lot about, it's Post-Grunge. Perhaps it's not much of a thing to be proud of, since we're talking about one of the most-hated genres out there. I still found stuff which was above-average, and even some seriously good stuff. Considering Breaking Benjamin were able to gain more success than other 50 bands, perhaps there's something unique about them. Or maybe they write some good hooks.
There is actually something unique about Breaking Benjamin, and that is their vocalist. He isn't notable for charisma or a unique vocal style, he's notable for being crap.
Saturate is better than most Post-Grunge when it comes to instruments and songwriting, but the bad vocals drown every song. He sometimes sound pretty good, on the verses, for example. When the hooks come in, he sounds like he's eating while he's singing. The result is laughable.
At least the band isn't horrible. They actually sound pretty good. "Natural Life" has a nice drumming into, while "Skin" and "Medicate" got good riffs. They can also generate the right atmosphere for the songs, such the verses for "Home", and the epic-sounding "Water". They also got their share of flaws, however. The band sounds very, very static. It harms these guys especially because you can feel they got some good ideas. When I listen to "Skin", I'm supposed to move my head. The riff is good, but it doesn't have a punch needed to truly makes it move my head.
At least Breaking Benjamins got some hooks. Or they don't. "Medicate" is extremely unstable. The song can either have an uplifting feel to it, or be very annoying. It tends to be mostly annoying because the singer can't sing and "medicating" is a cliche that should be criminalized. "Natural Life" falls into the same hole. It can't decide whether it wants to be annoying or catchy. At least they're able to produce the anthemic "Shallow Bay" and "Sugarcoat" floats close to Nu-Metal and sounds very solid, albeit a little dumb. In fact,
Saturate genrally has a better selection of hooks than most Post-Grungers. They would also sound a whole lot better if the vocalist swallowed his food before he started singing.
Between good hooks and instrumentation and a crappy vocalist,
Saturate turns into an average Post-Grunge which it shouldn't be. Take any faceless Post-Grunger and he would sing these songs better. Sadly, the result is a record that can only be considered really good for what it could've been. If you take it for what it is, you still get a decent Post-Grunge record. You should get Default's
One Thing Remains instead of this, however. It even had a bigger budget for the cover.
Best Songs:
- Water
- Home
- Shallow Bay
