In Your Absence

It’s never a fun or particularly rewarding task to trash music born of the courage and anguish of inspired area artists, but when said music arrives with a press kit that includes the usual promotional self-flattery and the overall message that the band in question is ready to go forth and begin stinking up the landscape like mercury-poisoned fish, well, we have to do our part to save our city. This hometown band reminds us first of all that the only thing worse than a bad Alanis Morissette impression is a bad Alanis Morissette impression that doesn’t even involve a single Alanis Morissette song. Such is the case with the nasal, slack-jawed yowl and puerile heartbreak poetry of In Your Absence singer Jovid (yes, just Jovid), who thinks that Haunting/ Memory/Cutting makes for a legitimate stanza. Bad vocals and writing can destroy a band, but when coupled with laughably clumsy guitar work, the combination can be downright lethal. Indeed, it’s hard to determine which is worse, Jovid’s tiresome artlessness or guitarist Steve Migdol’s inability to keep the beat — much less hit the right strings — as they stagger together through a playlist of gutless, sentimental and artificially broody woe-is-me tripe. The band’s sole redeeming quality is its fairly sophisticated and creative rhythm section — drummer Dan Herdman and bassist Justin Brown — which gets gold stars for suffering through the making of Confession. They should get the hell out before they become complicit in any more rock-trocities.