Aiden is one of those bands that are easily dismissed as ‘just another one of those bands that want to make it big.’

The band has been on magazine covers such as Alternative Press and Metal Edge, and won the KERRANG! Magazine award for Best International Newcomer, but its newest album, “Conviction,” lacks that little certain something that makes a good band great – originality.

It has dancehall drums, pianos and an overall tone of ‘we want to sound like every other popular band on the scene right now.’

Aiden is known for being a metalcore/hardrock/borderline punk band from Seattle. The band members wear smudged black eyeliner and have been compared to The Stooges, Motley Crue and The Murder City Devils.

The songs on “Conviction” are comparable to songs by The Cure, Joy Division, Marilyn Manson and David Bowie.

Francis, the band’s lead singer, describes the album as being about “loving the darkness that will destroy you, it’s about tearing yourself apart from the inside, it’s about feeling that the world is crashing around you with no hope in sight and all you can do is laugh. It’s about falling down then picking yourself back up and believing. Feelings that have eluded me for years now have bubbled to the surface and are finally seeing the light of day.”

“Conviction,” released Aug. 21, was produced by Death Cab for Cutie’s producer, John Goodmanson. Goodmanson might have been a contributing factor in why “Conviction” has a lighter, poppier sound.

Songs like “She Will Love You” and “One Love” are danceable and upbeat, but are balanced out by the album’s opener, “The Opening Departure,” which is a straight-up piano ballad.

The music video for “One Love,” the album’s first single, features blogger/Warped Tour hero, Jeffree Star, the androgynous pink-haired singer from Los Angeles.

The video and four sample songs off the album can be seen on the band’s MySpace page.

Fans of Aiden will know right away that this album is different merely by looking at the cover.

While their past albums displayed dark album art consisting of mainly black and red, the art for “Conviction” is full of color and life, portraying purple flowers springing forth out of the neck of a man’s body.

The album really is not bad. It is well-balanced and no one instrument is overpowering.

However, the lyrics leave something to be desired.

For example, the song “The Sky Is Falling” rhymes a little too well. “I know the sky is falling here we are, I’m empty/I feel the world keeps spinning am I high? Safely/If we all we are is dust and shades of grey/And how I wanted to say.”

Overall, “Conviction” is not horrible, but it is not spectacular, either. It seems to be just another album from Victory Records that will receive a lot of hype and not a lot of listeners. But who knows, maybe that is what fans want these days: a band that is easy to listen to and even easier to forget.