It seemed so easy to dislike this. A female-fronted band with pretty emo boys behind her looking to find a niche in the hard-rock/pop/goth style formed by Evanescence and, way more formidably, Lacuna Coil. Bye Bye Lullaby is definitely aimed at the pop audience as much as the hard-rockers but is still somewhat hard to deny. It’s also pretty hard to totally embrace.

The disc is filled with great melodies and easy-to-remember tunes. And to put it simply, Angelica Rylin is the perfect singer for this band. In fact, she is the band because she is its identity. The music behind her is pretty generic and polished. It’s been easier for me to listen to this disc as background music than to totally embrace it. A handful of tunes — “Meant to Last Forever,” “Violently Peaceful” and “Kind of Lousy” — stand out, but it’s still pretty hard to say anything good about them other than they stand out and have more radio potential. Once you get beyond those string of songs in the middle of the disc, there is a growing sense of sameness and a difficulty getting through an hour’s worth of listening.
Already a hit in their native Sweden, The Murder of My Sweet should gain international attention with Bye Bye Lullaby. Anyone who likes this would do better with anything in the Lacuna Coil catalog. It’s way edgier, more dynamic and, in a word, better.

Label: AFM Records (CD and MP3 formats can be purchased here)