Love Drug's album, Pretend You're Alive starts with a bang, but it's charms wear slowly down over the course of the album.

The opener, "In Red," is a lively, catchy bit of rock that had me hoping for big things from this album. Unfortunately, the song that follows, "Blackout," is far more representative of the rest of the disc.

"Blackout" is a song blessed with brilliant music and cursed with the whiny vocals that come to dominate the rest of the songs. Sounding like Radiohead (back in the radio friendly days) or Coldplay (with a little more willingness to make noise), Love Drug only manages to be distinct because of their biggest glaring deficiency: those damned vocals.

Rocknroll is a song with single written all over it. Fun, bouncy, and not overly challenging. But the vocals render the song almost unlistenable. Followed, happily, by Pretend You're Alive, the vocals are more subdued, and, even though the song is a dead on Coldplay knock off, it's much easier to sit through.

The rest of the album is the same: good music in songs that people just won't want to sit through and music that follows the template set down by Radiohead years ago.

The real disappointment here is that the musicians obviously have some level of talent and skill. The sense throughout is that they should have done better. In the end, though, the only thing I can recommend without reservation is the brilliant work of the packaging designer.

It isn't too often that you see metallic inks used with translucent paper in such a simple, stunning design. Good stuff.

Unfortunately, I don't buy CDs just for their covers.