If you could put the Southern California-based band Smile Empty Soul’s sound into a box, it might be construed as emotive heavy music. The problem is, once in that box, it’s hard to get it back out again.

With an all too familiar sound of buzzing guitars and angst-filled vocals amid half-baked, overwrought melodies on their self-titled debut, this trio is just a little too tender to be considered heavy metal and a little bit too edgy to be considered emo-rock.

While the band treads on issues that weigh heavy upon them, such as the self-destruction caused by substance abuse ("Bottom of a Bottle"), soulless children raised by TV ("Nowhere Kids") as well as their anti-war sentiments ("This is War"), the music, however does little to raise any eyebrows here unless you’re from the Staind/Creed crowd.

Despite a lack of identity, the band has an effective formula of mixing up some of their more promising numbers ("Therapy," "Your Way" and "Radio in a Hole") with emotive ballads and more introspective numbers ("This is War," "For You" and "With This Knife"). This mix gives the album a well-textured sense of timing, which makes this already familiar journey to an album’s end, a bit more interesting.

Smile Empty Soul’s first outing on disc comes off sounding like it was specifically crafted for alternative radio play like New Found Flory or Less Than Jake, which it will no doubt achieve. But considering the putrid state of that medium today, that’s this band’s biggest problem.