The closest
Hawthorne Heights' debut album comes to originality is that they rip off bands in two different genres, trying to blend the pop-emo of
Thursday,
Jimmy Eat World, and the other post-
Weezer bands with the glossy, commercial pop of bands like
Good Charlotte. With J.T. Woodruff's faceless alternative rock vocals alternating with Casey Calvert's equally generic metalcore barking over Micah Carli's heard-it-before power chords, the band is doing absolutely nothing new. That said, what they do, they do pretty well. Most of the songs have reasonably catchy choruses, there are no particularly egregious mistakes or failed experiments, and the leadoff single, "Life on Standby," is actually quite good in a completely disposable way. The overall lack of personality on this album is its fatal flaw, however. There's nothing on The Silence in Black and White that'll make anyone turn it off and throw the CD across the room in a fit of rage, but it's hard to remember anything about the album an hour after it's over. ~ Stewart Mason