Nowadays a band has to work pretty hard to stand out.

Despite a group’s efforts, innovation usually doesn’t come, and we’re left with a stagnant group of bands all competing to one-up each other at the same thing.

So while other bands are out buying as many pairs of neon skinny jeans as possible for their “crunk-core” band in hopes of being pioneers, Single File took the familiar pop-rock route on its newest release “Common Struggles,” but added some oddball lyrics to give the same old game a new little twist.

The album opens with the tongue-in-cheek breakup song “Mannequin Loveseat,” and the song isn’t an immediate cause for any excitement.

Lead singer Sloan Anderson does not have a particularly impressive voice, and the song is nothing listeners haven’t heard before. While his singing isn’t bad, it’s not great either — just average, a common theme for just about every aspect of this album.

The lyrics throughout are not very introspective or thought provoking and aren’t meant to be taken that way. In fact, they tend to be very slang laden and similar to adolescent prose, giving off the vibe of being weird just to be weird.

This juvenile sort of writing is showcased on the second track “Don’t Hate,” where the lyrics are exactly what would be expected from the title.

The lead single, “Girlfriends,” opens with the band whistling a melody before Anderson laments over the loss of his multiple girlfriends and his “burnout” status in the chorus.

The song is a poor excuse for a lead single and a better decision for the band would have been to make the catchy “Miss Cherry Lipgloss” the first song to hit the airwaves.

Surprisingly, “Common Struggles” is an album that actually gets better as it goes along. Rather than peaking before the halfway point, the songs get better near the end.

“Blue Sky Happiness” and “Zombies Ate My Neighbors,” — yes, it is based on the video game from the ’90s — have the same off the wall lyrics and pop sound the earlier tracks had, but are simply done better.

The first five tracks sound like the band didn’t put any effort into writing them and simply put them on the album because they had nothing better, whereas the next six tracks fit together well and have a more mature, developed sound.

“Benson Shady Grove (Save Yourself)” is a solid conclusion to the album and wraps everything up nicely.

Unfortunately, the desire to press repeat once the album concludes is notably missing as suffering through the first few tracks once more is daunting at best.

The major label debut from this three-piece band out of Colorado seems to be aptly titled — its music has a very common sound and a few of the songs have their fair share of struggles.

In a genre already filled with hundreds of bands, Single File needed to do something extraordinary with this release to separate itself from the rest of the pack, but ultimately came up short.

“Common Struggles” brings nothing new to the table and is nothing more than your run-of-the-mill pop-rock album.

Reach the reporter at jdfourni@asu.edu.