Sevenout
'Feast of Eden'
On Orbital Records
Grade: DGiven five minutes and a box of Crayolas, I'm pretty confident that I could draw a better album cover than Sevenout's Feast of Eden. The cover depicts a scene from the Fall, in which a pixelized and already clothed Eve accepts an apple from a disproportionately sized snake, who is wrapped around a branch with segments that don't line up. Yes, it's a sad day for Microsoft Paint. Unfortunately, the actual songs don't fare much better.

Detroit's Sevenout stands out among their fellow Motor City rock and roll revivalists for a few obvious reasons. Most apparently, they take their cues from 70s power pop and 80s hard rock instead of from classic garage bands like Detroit's own MC5. Being comprised of four older veterans of the Detroit scene, they also take a much cleaner approach to their music, sacrificing rawness in favor of a clear, concise studio sound. At first refreshing, Sevenout's self-described "big riffs and big guitars" ultimately just sound dated.

On their sophomore effort Feast of Eden, Sevenout plays it safe. No track strays from the standard verse-chorus progression, and there are as many recycled Van Halen solos as there are original songs. Opener "Round" sets the pace for the rest of the album, characterized by singer Shane McGregor's Rod Stewart-esque vocals. His lyrics can be memorized by the first chorus and absolutely despised by the second, and they include such offenses as a rhyme of "corridor of time" with "floating on cloud nine." Admittedly, guitarist Corey Storm provides "Round" with a pretty contagious hook but fails to vary his formula as the album continues.

A lack of variety isn't even Feast of Eden's worst aspect. To keep myself entertained during its 35 minute run, I began to play a little game. Take any song's title-they all have easy ones like "Back on You" or "Forever"-and guess the chorus' lyrics. I scored during "Where It Hurts" and "Daydream" with respective killer choruses of "She's...gonna hit you...where it hurts" and "You're living a daydream," but Sevenout threw me a curveball with "Got To." At least the profundity of "And I want to/and I need to/and I love to/and I got to" left me feeling empowered.

More seriously, Sevenout's true vice is their captivity within the bounds of their own record collections. It's awkward enough to listen to a man approaching middle-age croon about teenage love, but the power pop of "Forever" wouldn't sound especially out of place on Cheap Trick's Live at Budokan. The clichd mid-tempo blues rock of "Bobbie Jo" is a near mirror of Tom Petty's "Mary Jane's Last Dance," only omitting the harmonica and layered vocals. For "Daydream," guitarist Storm shamelessly lifts Blue Oyster Cult's famous riff from "Burnin' for You," while the country-tinged "Be Your Man" sounds suspiciously like Creedance Clearwater Revival. Predictably, Sevenout closes the album with a ballad, "Away from You," which gives a kitschy effect similar to Poison's "Every Rose Has Its Thorn."

Logically, Sevenout should not be a bad band. The four members are all talented, veteran musicians, playing together with almost symbiotic unity. Although their new album may look self-released, the sound quality indicates that Sevenout invested a good deal of time in making it. And they draw inspiration from a set of rock bands both important and currently underappreciated, which would hopefully make for an interesting record. But they've have neglected to forge their own identity and instead merely create a poorly-pasted collage of their influences. Sevenout also fails to capture the retro charm that their revivalist contemporaries toy with so well, instead straddling the line between bar band and hotel band.

One of the most valid complaints about the new revivalist movement in mainstream rock is that many bands fail to transcend the limitations of their influences. With Feast of Eden, Sevenout doesn't even come close.