The Sight & the Sound

Coalition's debut album is an odd and not entirely successful hybrid. Musically, it's pretty much straightforward screamo, with the usual post-hardcore dynamic shifts from breakneck verses into slow, thudding mosh parts and back. Nothing that hasn't been done before, really, although at their best, the four-piece, two-guitar band set up some truly impressive unison riffs, like the one that powers "It's Never Over." With a different singer, Coalition would be a solid, if mildly derivative punk band. Unfortunately, singer Daniel Sluka has entirely the wrong vocal style for this kind of music. Throughout the opening "With Time" and at other points across the album, Sluka goes for an aggressive, seemingly rap-influenced vocal delivery that brings up bad mental images of the thankfully out-of-fashion mook-rock style personified by Limp Bizkit. The combination doesn't work.