Downer's long delayed Roadrunner debut finally lands in stores and though the group have gone through various member changes through its recording, the final effort is a balanced and curiously emotional hard rock album that combines the psychedelic feel of older Soundgarden with Tool's atmospheric vocals and Jane's Addiction like melody, capped with an impending sense of urgency and pointed lyrics.

Band frontman John utilizes a very Maynard James Keenan like delivery that is perhaps a bit less emotive due to its condensed range, yet is still quite focused upon slow, flowing melody as repeated choruses and verses help paint bleak pictures with the aid of the gloomy lyrical content, filled with a range of darker topics. Guitars are resilient with fierce crunchy tones that sound fairly modern metal as they attack with the occasional splatter of spacey effects and jagged riffs that have a slightly detached aggression reminiscent of Disturbed. Bass playing is competent and uses abrasive sludgey tones as the notes work closely with the drums to form a tight knit rhythm unit. Meanwhile, percussion is a bit rambunctious at times, belting out swift rolls and consistently keeping the time with mid-tempo beats that are crafted with a thick feel.

On the whole, this album is a solid outing which establishes a distinct sound that is quite distanced from what we've come to expect of the typical new metal genre. There's enough aspects of the contemporaries here to keep fans of current loud music happy, but there's also a wealth of gritty lyrics that are structured in a rather catchy fashion, with huge hooks and winding verses that may possibly even help this band break through on radio. The unfortunate thing here though is that they stick to a fairly modest tempo throughout each song and after a few tracks, it becomes hard to discern them from one another. There's definitely a good formula in place, but there's also not enough dynamic variation of it to suggest that the group are fully pushing themselves to their limits. Still, on the other hand it is a debut record and does succeed in allowing them to leave their mark, but its hard not to feel that its just a shade of their potential and that the material they lay down on their sophomore effort will be something that represents them a lot more faithfully.