It’s been a little over a decade since the “do-do-dos” of “Semi-Charmed Life” and that one soaring chorus of “How’s It Going to Be” ruled the airwaves, but don’t tell that to Third Eye Blind.
For good or ill, and despite line-up changes, the band has maintained the alternative sound and pop sensibility that brought it to the public eye in the first place.
Ursa Major, the band’s first album since 2003, attempts to mix the fun and accessibility of radio rock with the emoting abstraction of adult alternative.
It works in some places –
especially in the more mellow, acoustic-driven tracks.
Songs like “Why Can’t You Be” and “Monotov’s Private Opera” are the cream of the crop. They are stripped down and the lyrics hold just the right amount of sentimentality to be relative.
On the other hand, “Don’t Believe A Word” seems to be aimed specifically at the
lobotomized; I don’t know how to explain all the ways this song is bad. And on top of it all, the song ends abruptly in 20 seconds of drum erotica and feedback as if to say, “Yeah! Let me accentuate how horrible I am!”
For this to be the first single is shameful. One rocker that does its job is “Sharp Knife,” and it doesn’t work because the lyrics are on, or the music is on, it just works because it does.
For the same unexplainable reasons that “Don’t Believe A Word” is bad, “Sharp Knife” is good.
The album relies heavily on lyrics and delivering them to tilt the songs one way or another.
The songs are definitely hit or miss.
Though it wins in some
places –
“Baby, it’s you and only you and no one else / And I mean it, even when I’m talking
to myself,” from “Monotov’s Private Opera” – lines like “I was walking alone on the ocean / I felt a fever burning up all I am,” from “About to Break,” feel cheap.
I would rather not discuss the first track from the album, “Can You Take Me,” and its timeless truth: “Let’s start a riot me and you! ‘Cause a riot’s overdue!”
Yawn.
Perhaps these lyrical misgivings
would be forgivable if the music surrounding them was more imaginative. The alternative rock dimension to this album is bland, to say the least.
I don’t remember hearing one guitar solo, and I’m listening
to the album again as I’m writing this.
Because the songs are so cookie-cutter, the album functions
by hinging a whole song on one section to win you over. Stephan Jenkins mastered this in the late ’90s, but age seems to have worn on him.
His, ahem, rapping seems more like the sound of monotonous
dogs than lyrics or timely swearing. (Cool!) His method of delivering lyrics in a way that makes him feel cool and you feel stupid easily makes or breaks most of the songs.
Pointless vocal effects don’t help.
While it may be boring, I have no doubt that there will be plenty of people who will enjoy this album.
I wouldn’t even go so far to say that I didn’t enjoy the album, it just wasn’t great. It truly is on the fence, and maybe that’s why it seems so droll.
The album would have much more impact if it had some driving force. Instead, it seems like Third Eye Blind recorded
a bland, directionless rock EP and a bland, directionless acoustic EP, then shuffled the tracks.