The one thing I liked about Sep7ember on the first listen is that they seemed just that little bit different from the norm. Tagged as a German melodic punk rock band immediately put in my mind a poor man's Green Day, but they are not that generic form of punk pop at all. I scratch my head really as they are far more indie influenced than punk. Formed in Frankfurt in 2007 they have been playing the local underground scene, gaining a reputation for their live performances. 'Strange Ways Of Going Home' is their debut long player.

Opener 'View Into Blur' starts with a nice bass rumble, scratchy guitars and all the right intentions; its strange vocal delivery of the lyrics, one syllable per line, is quite bizarre and I quite like it to be honest, just for one song anyway. It's a promising start, the modern rock with indie flavours works well here, a good, crisp production job lifts the song nicely.

Single 'I Hate NY' has a set of lyrics that attempt to portray some feeling of angst and definite hate towards the 'I love..' t-shirts, but the song itself is a lot softer and doesn't spit and snarl as much as the lyrics suggest it should. The initial disappointment soon disappears as I go with it; it's a solid track with a definite grunge feel to it.

Then, after that double barrel of promising songs, I'm afraid things get patchy. Songs like 'Run' and 'One Thing' lack catchy choruses and have what I would describe as a 'monotone melody', in that it's predictable and doesn't veer off anywhere different or offer much to get excited about. I want to be moved one way or another and after even several listens there is not much that leaves a lasting impression. They do create atmosphere and emotion in places, but there is just not enough to keep me interested.

The music itself is great, instrumentally speaking, the guitars of Guido Dobrautz and Bernd Siedler especially deserve a mention, the interplay between the two players is top notch. With some interesting riffs and parts going on it's the vocals I have the most concern about. The vocal melodies do nothing to compliment the music beneath them. Singer Boris Pillman, looking scarily like Jason Statham's evil twin, does not possess the greatest set of pipes in the world, to be fair. Sounding like Gerard Way trying too hard to be Ed Kowalczyk doesn't quite sit well with my ears, to be honest.

Lyrically it goes from quite clever to downright piss poor as in 'Super Hero Smash Hit Wonder', the opening lines of which are, "It's raining bombs today, he needs no umbrella I think, he jumps off of the sky, he doesn't fall like rain, he flies," make of that what you will!

The opening choppy guitars in 'Carpets' are sweet, great music here, but a horrible chorus lets it down, and this seems to be the general problem, a lack of chorus or if there is one it's a bit iffy.

'So' is worth a mention; tagged on the end as a bonus track is an acoustic version of 'So', in this more basic, stripped down and shorter form it contains more emotion than the earlier album version and is one of the highlights.

So I'm gonna be brutal here, really we have three half decent songs and a bunch of album fillers. I was hoping the songs would come to life after a few listens, maybe certains parts would finally jump out at me, like they sometimes do, but alas it was not to be. I don't see this album changing anyone's world right now, there are far more exciting bands you can wrap around your ears.

Maybe the recording process and production has watered down their 'punk rock' sound - they wouldn't be the first band to suffer this way - but in all honesty Sep7ember are going to have to try a lot harder to impress round these parts.

www.september7000.de