I'm not going to beat around the bush, BLACKWATER do not make music that gets my loins stirring.  In fact, they don't even make music that stirs anything within me.  They are not a bad band but their music is just so banal, that it is making my head hurt a little.  Sometimes an acoustic band come around that have something beautiful about them and their music is not only well written but it also has such a raw emotion behind it that it makes me want to tear off my face with joy.

BLACKWATER don't tick these boxes.  They make a particularly bland version of Soft-Pop-Mellow-Rock that could be written quite easily with a basic knowledge of chord progressions and maybe an afternoon in a song writing lesson.  The three piece have been building up momentum behind their gently rolling musical machine for the last couple of years and I have no doubt that they will be popular with a lot of people that want to know about rock music but are just too afraid to ask.  Forgive me if I sound a little bitter but I don't really have time for this kind of music (did I already mention that?).

The album opened rather deceptively and I thought we were going to be in for a nice reminiscence of the old Nu-Metal days.  There was distortion, rather whiny clean singing and a riff that my unborn child could play if we whipped it out tomorrow and gave it a guitar.  All of things that made Nu-Metal so accessible for a generation were present but when it came to the important bit - the balls - they fell short and just dissolved into some kind of warm mess that doesn't easily wipe clean.  As mentioned before, if they had a bit of character about them it would be excusable and I may be able to get behind them with more than a cricket bat.  Even just an interesting time signature or some challenging vocal work would be nice. The most interesting thing about this band is staring at the face of the bassist on their website and trying to work out if he really is the bastard child of MORTIS and BONG-RA.

If you have always wondered what people that grow their hair long and smell funny are like then you will probably go and buy this album, not because it will teach you anything but simply because it won't upset your place in society.  Or your parents.