With over 40,000 units shifted of their two previous independent releases, Just Surrender release 'Phoenix', produced by Lou Giordano (Taking Back Sunday, Goo Goo Dolls, We The Kings) and co-produced by Ace Enders, former frontman of The Early November.

With the press release claim of the Dover Plains, New York band playing "emo-tinged punk" already getting my fast-forward trigger finger itching, I place the disc in the tray of justice waiting for punishment to be served. The album's intro makes me think of Framing Hanley (who Just Surrender will support on their UK tour in September) whose 'A Promise To Burn' album really impressed me earlier this year so a temporary reprieve is granted. Then the album proper kicks in with riff so massive that I can't help but sit up and take notice. 'Through The Night' might get all too familiar around the choruses but that monster riff and the snotty verses are something special and certainly not what I was expecting.

'Take Me Home' begins and I'm left thinking that the previous song was something of a fluke. It's good, don't get me wrong, but we're into New Found Glory territory - catchy as hell, but falling into the generic template that I was kinda expecting as soon as the needle hit the record. As well as definite NFG influences, I hear the sound of the band's contemporaries littered across the soundscapes of every song, We The Kings for example.

The album's saving grace is that, at times, it tips the hat towards The Used and American Hi-Fi, bands that I really like and who have always attempted to blur the boundaries of the genres into which they have been pasted. Sure, there are many instances of unoriginal trend-following spread over the course of the record but, as a whole, like the afore-mentioned Framing Hanley album, 'Phoenix' is an ambitious stab at making a worthwhile opus rather than insipid music television friendly fodder. Their impending tour together appears to be a perfect match.

There isn't one photograph of the band in the CD booklet; a statement of wanting people to concentrate on the album or simply a pig ugly band? A curious move in a scene that is the most fashion-obsessed since the days of hair metal. Isn't it law now that at least one band member has to have his own clothing line?

'Phoenix' is an album that threatens to strangle itself with its overly familiar sound but there is enough on offer to garner some serious interest. 'Carried Away', for example, could be a massive hit. A curious entry into the album world - worth investigating.

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