Music in its purest form is an art form, an honest expression of creativity. However, it can be raped of all its merit and any possible meaning in the blink of an eye. Everything about IN THIS MOMENTs debut album reeks of what is wrong with the contemporary metal/hardcore scene that looms in the mainstream eye.

As if the metalcore genre wasn’t already oversaturated to the point of absolute absurdity, here comes IN THIS MOMENT with their contrived entry into the popularity sweepstakes. The band regurgitate every wannabe Swedish melodic death metal riff, breakdown, drum pattern, predictable combo of screaming/clean vocal pattern, and overall song structure in the metalcore handbook.

Yeah, the band sound like professional musicians but so what? The band was solely created to become “the next big thing (this can be verified by the band’s bio).” Beautiful Tragedy is as safe, sterile, and redundant as it gets. It’s a rerun of a rerun of a rerun.

Are male heavy music fans so lonely as to be duped into following a band simply for the fact that the singer is a female? Are the minds of fans so easily manipulated and sheepish as to drive them to become a devotee of such contrived mediocrity? Is there that much of difference between some fan of Ashlee Simpson/American Idol/Top 40 and some fan of Ozzfest/Hot Topic/Headbangers Ball? Ask yourself…what does music mean to you? What do you stand for? (Century Media Records)