I could only take this band with a grain of salt. I liked them at moments and couldn’t stand them at other times. I dreaded having to listen to this. But something about this record makes this stand out. Without looking back at their past releases, this release on its own is pretty good. My pop sensibilities kicked in and I really listened and enjoyed this. The production is dead-on. The songs have a maturity that makes this release stand above what they have done before. They have better hooks and the silliness of the past seems to be gone. They also seem to have walked away from a lot of the formula that made you know that it was them. I like the experimentation with sounds here. The strings and keyboards really add to the emotions of the songs. This might be the release that gets them lured them away to a major. Radio should pick this up. The fans they already have are going to eat this up.
–don (Fat)