Music tailor-made for a “Dawson’s Creek” episode

eastmountainsouth

eastmountainsouth

DreamWorks Records

… eastmountainsouth

eastmountainsouth

DreamWorks Records

Recommended if you like: soundtracks to sappy WB programming

There was a time when television sitcoms and dramas focused on plot, setting and character development. Then companies observed the power of synergy. Shows like “The Real World” started featuring blatant advertisements from companies like Pepsi and Sony, and the whole advertisement world was shot into a tailspin. What does this have to do with eastmountainsouth?

For starters, EMS is a folky, and sometimes country, adult contemporary band that would fit in perfectly on soft rock radio stations around the country. Not too shabby, but unfortunately, it feels like it belongs on weeknight drama shows like “Smallville” and “One Tree Hill.” Oh, wait.

The band has been featured on shows such as these, furthering the trend of combining tele-visual entertainment while marketing the “next big band.” What EMS does, it does very well: vocal harmonies over folk rock songs on an album that runs close to an hour. But at the end of the hour, you won’t feel fulfilled. Just like a good book needs a plot, EMS needs some sort of conflict and resolution for it to be more than a mediocre album.

Tracks like “Too Soon” more or less give you the feel of the record. Its slow-to-mid-tempo jams play out perfectly for weeknight drama shows, with a feel that the band was originally writing music for television. Their songs seem like they would fit the ending credits of a show or as background music during conversation.

The overall somber tone almost lays itself out like the introductions of songs by boring artists such as Nickelback and Creed, but at least those two artists make the music go somewhere, albeit in a downward direction. eastmountainsouth retains the same tempo in every song, harmonizing vocals the entire time. Every song feels more or less the same. Its sleepy-time formula was a nice attempt, but there’s also something called diversity that this band severely lacks.

If you’re looking for something in the adult contemporary section that will attempt to pluck your heartstrings, by all means give this record a spin. The voices are pretty, but easily forgettable in the annals of popular music. But the swooning vocal harmonies might keep you interested enough to continue.

I advise all serious music fans to look elsewhere, such as Sun Kil Moon’s fabulous Ghosts of the Great Highway. But perhaps with their next record, eastmountainsouth will define themselves as a band instead of merely providing background music.