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Oddities

Some albums hit you over the head, strike you down, and take you prisoner, super-glueing the cd or tape inside your player. This album, though, is an oddity. It's not the "return to Snakes in the Playground," sound that always seems to be the pre-release rumor about this band. My first impressions lingered more around the Drop sound real heavy, down-tuned guitars and hooks a la Soundgarden. There's not the grooves as high as a tsunami sounds that took this band to the second phase of their sound (a la "Would You Die For Me?"). The more familiar I became with these songs, however, the more I saw and felt the low end that the band pulled out in songs like "Murder," for example. There's a little bouncing around, tempo-wise, like the almost-jangly "I Ain't Coming Down," followed by the plodding ballad "Only When I'm Left Alone."
The musicianship is stellar. The bass playing shreds in "Tomorrow Makes No Sense," and the band almost gets jazzy in "Spirit." This majestic tune sweeps the listener along with great accenting and subtle guitar fills atop a tight rhythm section that ebbs for awhile only to burst open in moments of all out passion from Dale. It's dynamic in a way that captures much of this band's strength.
Lyrically, the always proficient lead vocalist has cranked out another notebook full of thoughtful poetry. In "Under The Blood," we hear Dale lament that, "We find ourselves running out of human breath..." We hear several emotions, like the joy of, "No greater feeling than the freedom to fly" in the song "I Ain't Coming Down," juxtaposed by the disappointment in "I Found God," which states: "I want peace in my life / but there's always a sword." There even seems to be some anger in "Die A Little Bit," where he describes someone venting: "Now you spit your words out just to see / where they splatter up on me." The words are definitely on a different plane than the surface-level, making for some wonder-filled exploring for the listener. Overall, it's an album that takes time to learn and love. Upon fist listen, most of us in the office here were unimpressed and left waiting for a hit to jump out at us. Now that it's been played several times, I've discovered a very good album that I'll want to keep listening to. [Organic/ Doug Van Pelt]