I was happy to see Our Lady Peace was still around and making albums, since so many of my other 90's favorites have hung up their strats. Their career has been a little uneven, debuting with the unspectacular Naveed (1995) but really breaking through with Clumsy (1997). They continued their moody arena-rock with Happiness is Not a Fish That you Can Catch (1999) and Spiritual Machines (2001), both solid albums, but it was Gravity (2002) that really made me a devoted fan. I can listen to that album over and over and never tire of it. It's probably my favorite album of 2002, filled with catchy hooks and great sing-a-ling lyrics, perfect music for a hockey arena full of fans to just explode to. Well, it's been three years and out comes Healthy in Paranoid Times, which is a worse album title then Happiness... It's a good disc, but the instantly catchy hooks and melodies are missing. Instead it's filled with moodier introspective songs, mostly mid-tempo, very U2 ish at times. There is a great arena rock song, trac 4, "Where Are You," and trac 1 "Angels/Losing/Sleep is also a good one. There's also a "Honeydew" moment, trac 9 I believe, that is a swinging beatles-esqu pop song that sounds unlike anything they've ever done, which is good. There's too few moments like that on the album. But I guess it would be impossible to improve on a perfect effort like Gravity, so I shouldn't be disappointed. This album won't win OLP any new fans, but die-hards like myself will enjoy this though repeated listenings.
The Sneaky Cheetah's Grade: B-
No comments:
Post a Comment