In our review of You Will All Fade Away, the 2007 debut album from doggedly dramatic Kansas City indie-rock band the Belated, we suggested that singer Michael Richardson take it down a notch or two. Amid the band's roaring, minor-key crescendos and epic piano-rock fantasias, Richardson's voice often came off like bad karaoke. During the two-year process of making album number two, Richardson roundly ignored our warning. On nearly every song, he stretches his limited, nasal baritone to lengths that David Cook would shy away from. And somehow, the aptly titled Belief in the Process is a better Belated album. That's because Richardson only sounds right when he's pushing it out loud and singing, as a vocal coach might say, from the diaphragm. Get the guy to sing softly, and he'll stomp all over the key, sounding like Ed Roland from Collective Soul with an inner-ear infection. Unfortunately, Richardson does like to croon, and this makes for cringe-inducing sourness in the quieter moments, of which there are many — the band writes soft-loud ballads in the vein of '90s-influenced FM rock acts such as the Calling and Lifehouse (minus the catchiness). Still, when Richardson gets the air support going, he sounds pretty good alongside the band's overachieving chamber-grunge. But no matter how strong and smart the instrumentals, a band just isn't gonna make it if the vocals aren't there.
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