Course of Nature
Damaged
Silent Majority
Course of Nature has seen its share of difficulties. The post-grunge group made it big in 2002 with the smash “Caught in the Sun” from their debut Superkala. But from there they had turmoil within the band (lead singer Mark Wilkerson was the only member for a while) and their label dropped them.
In the midst of all this, Wilkerson married actress Melissa Joan Hart and penned one of the biggest rock songs of the decade. Course of Nature was on hiatus and Wilkerson sent American Idol castoff Chris Daughtry a track for his debut album. He loved it and thus “It’s Not Over” was born and helped make Daughtry a household name.
After all of this, Wilkerson’s band is back as a quartet (the band was a trio previously) with a new album that sounds exactly like their first album. Damaged was made in 2007, but it still falls right in line with other radio-friendly post-grunge bands like Nickelback and 3 Doors Down. The album sounds like what the other two bands do: write two or three Top 40 songs, while adding a couple of slightly harder tracks to send to the rock stations and fill in the rest with disposable middle-of-the-road tracks.
The opening track, “Anger Cage,” and “Time is Slipping Away” enter into the slightly harder category, while “Memory of You” and “Right Before My Eyes” are perfect Top 40 tracks, catchy and easily recognizable, but also easily forgettable.
That’s Damaged in a nutshell: forgettable. It’s not bad, but it sounds so much like the generic rock records that are played on Top 40 radio stations that meld into one giant ball of… well, who cares? Wilkerson can write decent tracks, but he’s stuck in the late ’90s.
Course of Nature: http://www.myspace.com/courseofnature
