A third album is, usually, the one that starts to show character for a promising band that wishes to enter the circle of really promising ones and is the one that starts to explain why such a band creates some excitement around its name. It’s really hard to distinguish this identification in Rev Theory’s new album.

This is the case because, in this album, Rev Theory are not yet clear on what they want to do, how they want to sound and what they want to declare. After a couple of good albums one expects the really special one, the one that will lift the band off. What one gets with this one is an album that consists of things they did in their two previous ones, a mixture of  what they like, some of what they would really want to do and a little more of what other, similar bands have successfully done before.

Therefore, the outcome is nothing more than a patchwork of sounds. And the album takes off nicely with Dead In A Grave, Justice and Hangman with Rich Luzzi growling and roaring like a trapped animal and the possessed guitars bleeding the ears. Thinking of Seether or Papa Roach? Well, you can’t go wrong. What of the rest, though? Well, things change and the band turns to more of a post-grunge posture putting Nickelback and the rest in the equation while further on up the road the go even more mainstream.

Rev Theory are still a promising band. What they need to do in order to keep their promise is to find their own way. And with albums like this one they just don’t. Simply because their third album might be, at first, an acceptable and strong things, however, in the process it is self contradicting, repetitive and it actually goes nowhere. With Light It Up they seemed to be avoiding the darkness of the debut one, with this one they seem to be a bit confused…