Saving Abel, a five-piece band that hails from Mississippi, have crafted a solid debut album that blends in nicely with the songs on mainstream rock radio. But the problem is that Saving Abel blends in a little too easily: When you’re listening to the album, you may catch yourself thinking that you’re hearing a second-rate Foo Fighters or 3 Doors Down or a handful of other groups who have staked out the sonic territory that this new band is invading.
Familiar Subject Matter
The 11 tracks that comprise Saving Abel capture a young band full of enthusiasm, practically bursting with excitement to get to the next amped-up guitar chorus. Saving Abel is the group’s major label debut after releasing an independently released 2006 record, also self-titled, which included some songs that now show up on this new offering. The subject matter of Saving Abel covers the expected topics: odes to bad girls, diatribes launched at personal enemies and sensitive recollections of past heartbreak. And while the emotions expressed on Saving Abel are genuine, the familiarity of the song structures leave these sentiments feeling generic.Rockers Without a Style of Their Own
The pluses and minuses of Saving Abel come face to face on the opening track, the turbo-charged “New Tattoo.” Over revving guitars from Jason Null and Scott Bartlett, frontman Jared Weeks tells of a memorable road trip involving a broken-down car, its sexy driver and the wild escapades that soon followed. “New Tattoo” has all the earmarks of a hauling-asphalt rocker, but there’s nothing particularly memorable about its execution – the song rolls along pretty predictably both lyrically and sonically. Of course, the track sounds good in general, but when you focus your attention to the song’s specifics, there’s not much to sink the ear into.Ballads That Don't Break the Heart
When Saving Abel shift gears into ballad mode, Weeks’ limitations as a singer come to the fore. On a track like “18 Days,” about a painful separation from a lover, Weeks doesn’t have the vocal presence to make his anguish empathetic. Instead, his voice seems flat and impersonal, lacking the necessary grit that can turn a private lament into a universal tale of loss. His attempts at sensitivity call to mind Dave Grohl, but unlike the Foo Fighters leader, Weeks hasn't yet figured out how to sound raw and real when he's pouring his guts out to an ex. And when he tries to belt out the distraught chorus to “She Got Over Me,” his delivery is rather colorless. Part of the problem could be that producer Skidd Mills provides Saving Abel with such a thick layer of slickness that it’s hard for much personality to slip through the veneer.Hard Rock for Soccer Moms
The band’s first single, “Addicted,” has been a hit with mainstream rock radio, which is no surprise considering how perfectly tailored it is to the demands of that format. It features slightly risqué lyrics concerning a relationship built on good sex that’s meant to be edgy, though its streamlined vocals and guitars go down very smoothly so that even soccer moms can sing along to the words. But “Addicted” never quite builds to anything worthwhile. The same can be said of Saving Abel as a whole. Sometimes, the harder you try to blend in, the more you disappear.Release date – March 11, 2008
