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Envy on the Coast’s latest album Lowcountry provides some mainstream rock thrills, but a lack of ingenuity makes it easily forgettable.

The CD relies on simple and catchy guitar rhythms with equally fetching but ultimately meaningless lyrics.  The album is very superficial in the sense that the instantaneous appeal it provides is quickly overshadowed by a frightening lack of musical or lyrical depth.  The music seems recycled from the various genres of rock, including the initially enticing guitar rhythms.

Despite the obvious lack of creativity, Envy on the Coast did manage to put out a well-designed, mainstream rock album.  Instead of attempting something new, the band decided to improve the quality of what already exists.  And it is hard to not bob your head and tap your feet to songs like “Death March on Two, Ready?” and “Head First In the River” that offer a mesh of fast-paced, distorted guitars and Ryan Hunter’s talented voice.          

The vocals are the most entertaining aspect of this album, ranging from a soft, slow drone to a full-on scream, often in the same song.

 Although this is not uncommon in modern rock, Envy on the Coast does it better than anyone except maybe Underoath.  The album itself is a slightly softer tone than you would find in other scream-o bands like Underoath, but much of the theory is the same.     

One of the more impressive feats of Lowcountry is how it draws from a wide breadth of rock music.  Envy on the Coast clearly draws from influences in the soft, hard, scream-o, southern and metallic rock genres. 

However, these influences sometimes go too far and start to sound a little too much like Incubus or Rage Against the Machine, thus losing some of the band’s own identity as a rock group.                       

This is an album for those who love the current modern rock scene and can’t get enough of bands that promulgate the 93.3 scene. 

Although Lowcountry promises nothing new, it does an excellent job of taking advantage of what has already been created.  Despite doing this extremely well, it is a little disappointing that it seems like an impossible task to discover a chord progression that has not already been utilized by other, popular rock bands.  This album is worth getting only if you understand it is the kind of album that you will buy, enjoy, and listen to until a month later when you completely forget it.