Kent is being touted as "The Swedish Radiohead" and who's going to argue? Lead singer Joakim Berg has that Yorke-ish emotional tinge to his high tenor voice (with just a hint of Corgan), the production is lush and full, and the songs all have an epic quality. Like Radiohead, Kent seems like a band destined to play stadiums, with a huge sound structured around sing- along choruses, power chords, and pieces that build from tinkly piano intros into crashing epiphanies. To some people, this sounds great, while others will find the latter- day U2-isms bombastic and obnoxious. In other words, if you like your rock as big and clear as the Montana sky, you'll be digging on Kent.

Isola is the band's third album, but the first to be released in the United States (and the first to be recorded in English). The two most immediately apparent things are that these guys know how to work a studio (there's a very strong sense of craftsmanship here), and that the songwriting is relatively spotty. At times, like on "Things She Said," the overwhelming poppiness is such that they transcend the more obvious influences, achieving the emotional impact they covet. But for every one of these, there are two tracks like "Elvis," which is competent but interchangeable with all kinds of stuff you hear on commercial alternative radio these days.

I can appreciate the sound myself, but the songs don't do much for me. There's something too familiar about all of this-- a blurry memory of driving around the city with a headache as Toad the Wet Sprocket played on the "new rock" station. True, there's a catchiness to some of the songwriting and the sound is great, but there's also something that seems cliched, like Isola is some record executive's idea of what "modern alternative" is supposed to be. Calling something is derivative is a weak criticism, as just about everything has been done already and nothing is truly "new." But isn't there still some used stuff left that's more interesting than this?

-Mark Richard-San