Sun Dial – Sun Dial

Hey Grunge, been a long time. You gave us a lot of great music. Hell, the “Big Four” was enough to justify your existence. Sadly, it appeared as if rap-rock killed you off around ’98, but then it seemed that you were making your grand comeback a few years ago. Yet”¦you seemed different. You exchanged a suit for ripped jeans and flannel, you got a lobotomy and you took a shit-ton of Ritalin. Basically, you were a zombie. I could only shake my head in disgust.Well, it seems you may have been reincarnated in Sun Dial and its self-titled album. Except, now, in addition to a lobotomy and Ritalin, you acquired schizophrenia along the way. Not only are you a simulacrum of your former self, you don’t even know which simulacrum you’re supposed to be. Basically, you’re dumb and confused. Not a good combo.You certainly sound like your old self, at least on the surface. That is, with a cursory glance you appear to be Alice in Chains, not Puddle of Mudd; you’re the Screaming Trees, not Seether. The problem is that, while you sound classic, your songwriting isn’t. Think of yourself as a Ferrari with a Geo Metro engine. You see, stealing from all of the Big Four isn’t like borrowing from several sources when you write a paper; here, it’s still theft. You can’t borrow the nonsensical lyrics of Nirvana (‘Zodiac’), and also take the heaviness of Soundgarden (‘Double Cross’), and then also lift the soaring-melodies-over-dirty-power-chords of Alice in Chains (‘No Coming Back’), and then also pilfer the voice of Seven Mary Three (the entire album) ”“ 7M3, by the way, shamelessly plagiarized Eddie Vedder’s voice and hair, so really it’s second-rate theft.The worst part? Sun Dial has been around since the Grunge era so the band should fucking know better than to attempt a re-animation.