Until about three weeks ago, I had never heard of Eighteen Visions. Maybe I'm just out of the loop, but when I was told that I would be interviewing them, I was somewhat surprised to find out just how big they were getting and that the name Eighteen Visions had never touched my ears. It wasn't until the morning before Eighteen Visions took the stage with Midtown and the Lost Prophets at Minneapolis's Quest, that I finally was able to get a copy of their latest release, Obsession.

As I read the album's liner notes, I noticed that Obsession was produced by Mudrock, whose most notable credentials would include Godsmack and Avenged Sevenfold. And while I haven't much to say about Avenged Sevenfold, Godsmack's blatant thievery toward bands like Alice in Chains and STP have left a bad taste in my mouth (and no, acknowledging a rip-off by naming one's band after an AIC song doesn't acquit one of the charges).

Still, I repressed my bitterness and put on the disc, trying to give Eighteen Visions as fair of a chance as possible. Fortunately, I found the album, and the band, to be more promising than I had initially predicted. They weren't all that bad. Despite obvious nods to the likes of Finch and the Deftones, among others, Eighteen Visions seems to have somewhat of a mind of its own. This isn't to say the band is unique or original. There's really nothing notably different about them. Instead, what Eighteen Visions has working in their favor, is that they borrow from so many influences that it's difficult to pin them to any one act of copyright infringement.

While I'm sure their lyrics have personal meanings, they're lost on me. It isn't hard to figure out what the songs are about, but many of the words seem to be thrown in just to take up space. In "Crushed," a song assumably written about a deadbeat dad, singer James Hart starts with, "You could ease my pain/You could bring the rain/Yet all these clouds have washed away/So why does my life still seem grey." Lyrics like these make it hard to distinguish between redundancy and contradiction.

But if salvation can be found nowhere else, for Eighteen Visions, it is in their live show and their honesty about it. Unlike most bands with similar sound and style, Eighteen Visions acknowledges that they put on a show. Where many bands declare "rawness" and act far too cool to move around a little bit, Eighteen Visions embrace their on-stage flamboyance. Amidst the lights and fog that engulfed the stage during the Eighteen Visions set, Hart continuously struck Weiland-esque poses: arching his back and tipping his head with attitude to spare.

"We've been playing heavy music I don't know how long and, like, we don't necessarily look like, you know, like, back when we were playing metal stuff, we didn't look like your typical, like, metal hardcore band," Hart explains. "Our live show has like a lot more attitude than just, like, your typical, like, pissed-off like angry, like, hardcore show." Hart continues, "It had, like, more attitude and more, like, flash to it."

With all said and done, allow me to make it clear that Eighteen Visions is not a terrible band. If I had the choice again, I wouldn't have spent eleven bucks on their CD (Thanks Kinder!), but I would consider their live show worth it. At worst, they're a band with far too much influence, but at best, Eighteen Visions is a group of capable musicians with an alive and entertaining on-stage presence

If nothing else, you can always find enjoyment out of how many times Hart can say "like" in one sentence.