There are enough diamonds in this rough that, if polished well enough, could get them back on the path.

System Of A Down is such an iconic, idiosyncratic band. For nearly 20 years they have been carving out their own niche, thanks to devastating heaviness and eerie sparseness that no one could get away with copying. After a hiatus, they are now back and slamming their way through festival stages. The Lidocaine must not have got this memo.

Clearly, a band obsessed with SOAD is going to provide you with two main things: eccentric vocal deliveries and crushing heaviness. Both, it has to be said, The Lidocaine pour into second album, 'On The Road To Miero'. Unlike their heroes, however, The Lidocaine don't really know what they are. Crushing metal breakdowns one minute, bouncing punk rock guitars the next offers a confusing hour of music. Little of 'OTRTM' has much focus and dances around, but never settles on, that one central idea. When things get really lost, it's apparently time to break out the bizarre vocals.

Unable to convincingly meld these elements, their efforts create bores such as 'Personally Sick Skin' and 'Disgust'. The self-consciously crazy 'Wrong' spoons this lack of cohesion out in a hefty seven and a half minutes. It should be said that The Lidocaine do, at times, manage to create their own sound and the Finnish hard rock/metal mob offer some flashes of musical mastery. There are some superb sections on 'Life Is Beautiful'; lively hard rock riffs and clattering drums overshadowing the weak vocals. 'Guilty' has some excellently creepy, heavy punk guitars and death metal growls. But 'Bring Back The Pain' and 'The Tail' sound like tracks cut early from the 'Toxicity' recording sessions and suck out any hopes of a momentum.

Album number two may have been a step too far. However, there are enough diamonds in this rough that, if polished well enough, could get them back on the path.

Dan Bond