Black Tide

Black Tide, appearing with Bleeding Through and Bullet for My Valentine, is almost literally a baby band: Guitarist/singer Gabriel Garcia doesn't even qualify for a driver's license yet, and none of his bandmates has reached legal drinking age. Still, they're old enough to know better than to venture too far from hard rock's rudiments. The notorious conservatism of the genre is well-established, with stylistic shifts taking place gradually if at all — and these Floridians seem happy to leave things just the way they are. Light From Above, released earlier this year on the Interscope mega-label, is sleek and propulsive in the '90s-metal mode, with tunes such as "Give Me a Chance" and "Show Me the Way" offering up melodic riffology accompanied by precisely zero surprises. As of now, the musical template corporate concerns have been dispensing for so long seems to fit the Black Tide boys perfectly. But they're young enough to grow out of it.