The Calling: Camino Palmero

By RUSSELL BAILLIE

(Herald rating: * *)

Currently sitting at the top of our singles charts with the by-numbers power ballad Wherever You Will Go, Californian quintet The Calling seem to spring from that factory from where America get their readymade practitioners of earnest radio-friendly anthem-rock.

Especially the ones with the sensitive but throaty baritone singers, in this case one Alex Band.

There are a few boy-band haircuts among them and their sound suggests their influences run all the way from Hootie and the Blowfish to Matchbox 20.

So their immediate future is undoubtedly assured, especially with hits-in-waiting Adrienne and Stigmatized.

But while those tracks suggest The Calling may well be this year's Lifehouse (whose Hanging By A Moment sounds like a very close cousin to Wherever É), the only remarkable thing about the album they spring from is how utterly predictable and anonymous it sounds.

Label: RCA