Coldplay get a bad rap sometimes. For all their songwriting ability and musical capability (not to mention record sales), they are frequently accused of being a bit on the boring side. But their conscious decision to sidestep a more well-travelled route is a defining factor of alternative rock.

So when a band like S.I.L. comes along in this alt-rock mode with an album like ‘Red Horizon’, accusations of boring are a bit unfitting considering that the particular style on display is a very conscious decision. The problem is that the Gorey-based band are what Coldplay would sound like if they were actually as boring as their critics say they are.

‘Red Horizon’ is a collection of music that stares wistfully into space without ever really getting to the point. As a debut album it doesn’t lack  ideas, but rather it takes a series of the usual inspirations and a smattering of good ideas and calibrates them into a single bland formula.

It is all exceedingly well-produced and professional. Any flaws the album has lie much deeper than this, making them hard to unearth, as they are buried beneath this polished veneer of absolute professionalism. At their heart S.I.L. are a band struggling to engage with anything in particular.

Tracks like lead single Broken Glass coast along with an inoffensive grace, rising from dissonant to harmonious rhythms without ever finding a distinctive sound to make their own. Everything S.I.L. do sticks very close to a comfort zone, never letting go the lifejacket of carefully arranged order to embrace a more chaotic, unpredictable freedom.

Even when S.I.L. unleash raw distorted guitar breakdown on tracks like Old Stock, it feels like they are doing it in the safest way possible, always immaculately careful not to sully their precious music with a single erroneous bum note.

Underlying this care is a general lack of emotion. When frontman Damien Walsh croons the line “everything I do is wrong” on Wrong he might as well be saying “We are out of milk”. The reason many of the tracks on ‘Red Horizon’ flounder isn’t that they are unduly careful, it is that this undue care has sapped them of an emotional impact. This is what sets Coldplay, Radiohead and just about any band who has ever been accused of being a tad on the dull side apart, and this is where S.I.L fall just a little bit short.