The Radio Sun
Beautiful Strange

Five albums in five years, a very diligent band this Australian one called The Radio Sun, I reviewed their unstoppably ordinary album last year and wasn’t too impressed. Often diligence comes at the cost of lower quality and less creativity, I know how it is considering I am quite diligent in my writing and know that the more I write the less imaginative the writing can be like it will probably be in this review. But of course it can be both strange and beautiful, at least according to the title, which would be great. The artwork is really nice though and if the music is as attractive as the artwork it can be well worth checking out, but is it that good?

It isn’t a very exciting album from a creative standpoint, classic melodic rock with catchy choruses and plenty of melodies. They have decent vocals and the production is quite good as well, an album that will feel familiar to those knowing the band’s earlier albums – it is not really different from what they have done before. The songs are the usual suspects, the hit-like ones, the slower ones, perhaps a ballad and that sort of things, no surprises really and the variation is okay but the album is a bit long with 46 minutes of playing time. It is simply melodic rock of the usual format, no real surprises here – familiar stuff for fans of the band and fans of the genre.

Good album, good songs with relative hit potential and enough inoffensiveness to go down well with the band’s fans and those who enjoys the regular melodic rock music. I think it is an album that lacks any major weakness but has its weakness in the lack of originality and fresh thinking, which is probably enough for the album to be quite forgettable and also helps it drown in the ever-increasing stream of similar music that comes out. Not saying that it isn’t enjoyable to listen to, it is but I quickly forget it after having heard it. One of the reasons for this is the lack of a distinctive brilliant hit song that makes you want to return to the album, and the other reason is that I hear albums like this very often and it isn’t overly special – it is good but I tend to forget it pretty fast, slightly better than the predecessor but the same kind of album.

The conclusion will have to be that if you have liked their previous albums you will most likely like this album as well; the same goes if you indiscriminately enjoy the melodic rock genre. I think that this album is too good to be considered bad but also too poor to be considered great – it is a good and solid album from a solid dependable band.

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