Formerly known as American Murder, Epidemic are an up and coming Los Angeles, CA based act who look to have all the requisite skills to make a mark for themselves in the land of radio friendly hard rock. With infectious choruses, muscular riffs and smooth song structures, the band carve out a brand of moody rock that can bring to mind the likes of finger eleven, Bush and perhaps even the latest offering from Stabbing Westward, except it all comes underpinned by a slightly darker edge.

With a weathered and almost husky voice band frontman Boris contributes a convincingly tenacious vocal performance that is more than able to land soaring melodies, humble confession like verses and even a few invigorated screams as he expresses his viewpoints and experiences through song. The guitar work however shows a bit more restraint and rolls out treble heavy riffs that add considerable momentum and edge to the mix as they lash out with a few noise heavy breakdowns and caress with haunting drawn out strumming and plucking. As is often the case, the bass lines thus become the foundation for their six stringed brethren, paving a solid path of roomy low end that doubles up the guitar parts with an aggressive feel whenever necessary and launches into its own wide open spaces when not. This quality tends to keep the percussion in the background, solidly filling out the songs with consistent snare and kick drum variation along with some resilient cymbal and hi-hat work that rarely attempts to establish its own identity. This mindset tends to work well with the bands style however as it keeps the songs locked on target from start to finish.

It goes without saying that the radio rock market is swamped at the moment with tons of Nickelback and Creed clones and thankfully Epidemic don't add themselves to that pile. They honestly sound far more heartfelt and heavier than the bulk of what's out there, plus they seem to be a bit more open minded in the way they write their songs, qualities which will likely bode well for them to stand out from the pack. Sure the album can drag on now and then and a few of the songs feel like filler, but this aside there are still some fairly powerful tracks included on this effort and as such it just may be able to make a dent. If more bands that take chances and diversify their material like Epidemic come along in the near future, perhaps the world of hard rock will be a more interesting listen as they are definitely a step in the right direction for the genre as a whole. But whether or not the listeners will embrace them or continue listening to the same old contrived and soulless bands is unfortunately another matter all together.