System and Station: A Nation of Actors

System and Station: A Nation of Actors On their fourth full length, System and Station navigate their post-punk sound through the poppiest territory its ever entered. RFK Heise and his bandmates have been making music for just over a decade now, yet their lack of critical or commercial success makes the idea of making a living off of music a hard sell. Not to mention, the band is currently located in Portland, a do or die type city that can easily eat a musician alive. System and Station is a fairly straight forward. Their music is rock music with a little alternative/post-punk influence. They sound like a slightly more abrasive combination of Sunny Day Real Estate and Jane's Addiction. While the music sounds like it could have made quite a splash in the days when those bands ruled the airwaves, System and Station seem to be a decade too late. I find myself bobbing my head to the music but never overly enjoying it. Everything they write is mid-tempo and filled with angular guitar work with a drab feel to it. A Nation of Actors truly feels like a soundtrack to a gray day for me. Rating: 5.6/10 MP3: System and Station "The Magnetic North" Buy: iTunes, Insound