What a range here. Or maybe that's inaccurate, as range connotes a variety or spectrum. More accurately, this album reflects polarity—at one end, the perfect type of rock and roll from the aughts; at the other, the worst case scenario hacky jam band culture of the same era.
We get this duality right off the bat. Track one, "Poison pill," evokes everything I want in slightly whiny, slightly loud mid-2000s rock music. I get real Cheap Girls vibe, which is a high I'm always after.
"Walk to Work," track number three, alternatively combines all the worst elements of Dave Matthews Band, O.A.R., and Barenaked Ladies. This stuff always and forever will suck ass. I'm too uptight to chill.
Such is the complexity of man that such divergent tones can come from the same people. We are a multi-faceted thing.
The rest of the album fits firmly into one of these camps, with the bullshitty stuff taking up a way higher percentage than I would like. Sometimes, they're poignant lyrics about lost love and mediocrity—"Off the Air" is firmly in the good category. Other times, we have stoner musings about the splendor of nature. The former is what I've grown accustomed to expect in whiny white dude rock music, while the latter is what I always loathe.
I also listened to this on my daughter Clara's sick day. I'm not sure what it says about her, me, and the band, that she liked the third song and hated the first song.
As a postscript, I suppose we have to dwell upon this awful penchant for white dudes covering rap songs with piano. This rendition or interpretation of "No Diggity" by Blackstreet (titled enigmatically as "Places People"), with a bongo solo, is particularly grating. Probably not as bad as Ben Folds' cover of "Bitches Ain't Shit" and his heavy dropping of the N-word. It's not cultural appropriation because I'm sure the band generally adores the sources material and is essentially respectful. But just because there was a fun jam session where you played a rap song doesn't mean it should be played live or included on an album. I'd like to think we are beyond all this bullshit (and that I didn't enjoy it when I was a teenager), but I'm not so sure.
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