Certain albums make better soundtracks than the overly-hyped public relation tools that pass as movie soundtracks nowadays.

At times, a band can piece together tracks that are cohesive enough to backdrop the movie in our minds and diverse enough to compliment any scene we place ourselves in.

The Texas quintet Flyleaf’s debut full-length is a soundtrack album. But it’s not fit to score the vast range of emotions, situations and ebb-and-flow context of daily life. Instead, the 11 tracks are crafted for two things: forced machismo and melodramatic mourning.

With cookie-cutter glossy production and a look as tired as the intentional bags under band member’s eyes, Flyleaf’s ham-fisted rock ’n’ roll persona is both uninspired and irritating.

Tracks like “I’m So Sick” and “Fully Alive” are to echo through weight rooms and low-budget metal fests’ second stages. Whereas “Sorrow” and “All Around Me” sound more over-the-top than Evanescence – Flyleaf’s mirror image.

What makes the juvenile intrepidity and teenage angst most sickening is the band members are all in their mid-to-late 20s. The sappy naivety and overly-dramatic heartbreak of somebody this age is as unconvincing as listening to a grade schooler write poetry about “true love.” There is no way these feelings are real. They are manufactured, carbon copies of emotions that have worked for others in the past – it is what is expected.

Bands are sad. Life is tough. Guitars are rigid. Vocals are snotty. Love is hard. Pain is rough.

Same banal drivel, different day.