There is a section of Jonathon Lethem's "The Fortress Of Solitude" wherein the narrator discloses his hatred of rappers for being pretentious and so audacious as to wear their "street experiences, real or feigned, like badges". However, when the he stumbles across young and generic rapper-wannabe M-Dog, he finds himself surprisingly moved: "...with his bashful Mexican face and utterly derivative rhymes, couldn't offend me this way. Perhaps Katha would have said it was the drugs, but I adored him. He'd never lived in a rapless world, I understood".

So too, it is clear that In The Dark have never lived in a world where* Rage Against The Machine* have ever been uncool, or where* System Of A Down *have ever been creatively surpassed. You can't help but smile at this band's juvenile imitations of their heroes: disgusting guitar sound, a childish American accent, "deep" spoken-word sections. It's cute. They attempt mandatory politics, basically proclaiming that capitalism = bad, war = bad, America = bad; it barely constitutes bread and butter teenage rebellion... and does saying that America is rubbish in a put-on American accent (when you're from Surrey) not just seem silly to you?

In The Dark is but a tatty patchwork of big American rock acts you've heard before. They know who they want to sound like and do their gosh darn hardest to mimic. You can't help but go "aw... bless". It's a band that a mother would love, a friend would adore, but any critic would despise.

The weird thing is that there is no pretence, no delusions of grandeur, no apparent lust to be the next big thing, and no risk taken. In light of this, it's hard to knock In The Dark for doing nothing apart from having a good time, sticking to tried and tested formulas, and falling way short of doing anything really "interesting".

This band needs to find some security and have another hack. They need to rectify their guitar sound, the dumbass vocal deliveries, and their desire to be any number of pre-established mainstream alternative metal acts. Too generic, unconfident, and too scarce on the satisfying moments. Sorry to be so down on it, boys.