Eighth grade was a simpler time in life. My non-discriminate taste allowed me to enjoy just about anything that modern rock radio or MTV fed me. A time where I'd never stop listening to an album and think, "Good Lord this shit is awful." Six years later, things are not so simple, and unfortunately for Mean Streak, I do discriminate with music much more now that I'd have ever even thought to then.

Mean Streak's nasal take on metal-tinged rockn' roll does nothing if not grate on the nerves. "Esteban Was Eaten!" begins with a fairly engaging rhythm, and interesting chord progression, but it's truly all down hill from that point on. Essentially a less well known and less talented version of Anatomy of a Ghost, the Pittsburgh natives plod through seven tracks with a lackluster amount of effort and marginal musical ability.

They're capable of some solid drum fills here and there, and the occasional tight rhythms, but the whole package isn't cohesive enough for any sort of uniformity to be reached. The vocals remain largely off key, and that's a stumbling point from which the group is never able to truly recover. Inevitably, the singer's voice is what's going to be most notable for a band, and when that's off, that throws everyone else's mechanics and timing into a vacuum in which everything comes out an solid shade of brown. The only track that stands out doesn't do so because of its own merit, only the length, a painful eight minutes.

Stuck in the exact middle of the album, the entire duration shows a band struggling to find any true direction. The guitar work is just plain clumsy, and the wailing vocals are poor enough to warrant just turning the album off altogether. The last four minutes are what seems like an attempt for the rest of their band to show their instrumental skills, the obvious problem being, there's none to be spoken for. Explosions in the Sky they are not, as the four minutes drag on, and on, without any twists or excitement to speak of.

You're only as strong as your weakest link, but when there's not a strong link to be found whatsoever, what's left is a body without a spine, a hollow cavity in which not even a soul is found.