Album Review: Alamance - In The Moment

Alamance have done things. Big things! Warped Tour? That’s pretty big. Played with My Chemical Romance? Also pretty big. Playing with The Jonas Brothers? Yeah, that kind of big. With all this taken into consideration you would expect ‘In The Moment’ to sound just that, big.

However, despite enlisting the production services of Rob Freeman, who was manned the desk for the likes of Hit The Lights, Armour For Sleep and Cobra Starship, ‘In The Moment’ just doesn’t cut it on the production front. Vocals sit too high in the mix, guitars sound amateurish and the piano sounds tacky and cheap.

Which is a real shame because, for the most part, Alamance do write perfectly good songs. Granted, they aren’t particularly ground breaking. The band have more than a hint of Something Corporate about them, not just with their use of piano but Josh Sorhagen’s vocals bearing more than a passing resemblance to those of Andrew McMahon.

For the most part, however, the songs are catchy and well structured. The likes of ‘Circles’ and ‘Right Where I Want You’ are great pop songs, as good as anything emerging from the burgeoning US pop-rock scene. Unfortunately some songs aren’t up to scratch, ‘Blaming You’ attempts to mix up the pace but ending up plodding along with a dreary chorus but for the most part this is a fine, if slightly derivative, album. It’s just such a shame that an album which should sound huge ends up sounding like a promising demo.

2.5/5

'In The Moment' by Alamance is released on June 15th through Smack In The Face Records.

Alamance on MySpace

Barney Dufton