Amity Lane has a solid pedigree following them: two of the three founding members were also founding members of Trust Company, who many of you have probably heard of in some form or another. As a result, you might be able to guess what sort of music they make: nu-metal/hard rock. But while they have a good pedigree, that doesn’t mean that The Sound of Regret is a good record by default. Fortunately, Amity Lane manages to back their pedigree up reasonably enough with a solid first CD.
By and large, The Sound of Regret is reasonably solid as a nu-metal effort. None of the songs on the CD are unlistenable, and overall the band manages to do what they’re doing well enough. “Drown You Out†and “Say Goodnight†are essentially nu-metal done properly, with some solid guitar work and solid writing to get the songs going. There’s also the odd smattering of keyboard work and programming on the CD, though it’s never the focal point of the songs (except on the hidden track).
Honestly, the only thing I can really say against The Sound of Regret is that it doesn’t really do anything special. It sounds good, it’s well structured and organized, and you can tell Amity Lane has some talent, don’t get me wrong. But there is very little done here that you haven’t seen somewhere else. While most of the songs sound acceptable, there are only really two or three standout tracks on the album, and they’re only standouts in comparison to the rest of the CD.
Amity Lane really doesn’t do anything to make themselves stand apart from the eighty billion other nu-metal acts on the market. The Sound of Regret sounds good enough, and if you’re looking for something that typifies the genre, you’ve got it here, but there’s not much more to it. Hopefully they’ll find a voice that they can call their own in future efforts; until then, The Sound of Regret remains a solid piece of work, but not much more.
Website: Amity Lane
