Twenty-one years after the release of their smash debut Gordon<\/i>, the Barenaked Ladies came back in 2013 with their twelfth studio album (counting their holiday and children\u2019s records) and unfortunately, it wasn\u2019t even close to being the best collection of songs they\u2019ve could released.<\/p>\n
The opening track, \u201cLimits\u201d is an interesting enough song with some electro inspired beats and loops behind it. It feels at this stage in the game that the band is experimenting with different types of music, trying to play around with something that will get them back in the charts. All this seems unwise considering the band has been around for so long consistently doing the music they know and are familiar with. The first single, \u201cBoomerang\u201d is consistent with their most recent material and would sound right at home blaring out of the speakers at Kohl\u2019s or J.C. Penney. The song is catchy enough but it just feels like it\u2019s missing something important.<\/p>\n
\u201cOff His Head\u201d is written for the children, but it just sounds very forced and out of place. \u201cGonna Walk\u201d doesn\u2019t sound as great in the studio, though it should be one of those tracks which would work very well live.<\/p>\n
Continuing in this vein, \u201cOdds Are\u201d just kind of struggles along without meaning or direction. For the majority of the record, guitarist Ed Robertson takes over lead vocals, which should work great as it has in the past, but the band needs something to change things up. That\u2019s one of the reasons why their previous record, 2010\u2019s All In Good Time,<\/i> worked: because Ed, keyboardist Kevin Hearn and bassist Jim Creegan sang lead on various tracks. Ed\u2019s vocals are good, but this is a band that is known for switching singers on almost every other album track.<\/p>\n
\u201cKeepin\u2019 It Real\u201d comes across like a weak They Might Be Giants song, just not as funny or clever as it should be. From here on, with two major exceptions, the album basically descends into the mundane and uninteresting. \u201cGive It Back To You\u201d is one of those worthless songs that feels lifeless and limp. But it\u2019s not even the worst song here: the (dis)honor goes to \u201cBest Damn Friend,\u201d which is officially the most useless BNL song since 2003\u2019s \u201cAnother Postcard.\u201d Nothing on this track works and it comes across as very desperate and totally lifeless. Such a sad state of affairs for this once great band.<\/p>\n
The biggest sore thumb on the record is \u201cDid I Say That Out Loud?\u201d which would\u2019ve worked best on their children\u2019s record. It just seems it has no real place on this record and the very lame lyrics do absolutely nothing to save it. Trying not to sound like a total buzzkill, there is one rather decent track. Like the previous record, it comes courtesy of Kevin Hearn. \u201cDaydreamin\u2019\u201d is an excellent pop song on par with tracks like \u201cCall And Answer\u201d and \u201cBreak Your Heart.\u201d It\u2019s the type of song that this album really, really needed in order to save it from being completely and utterly forgettable.<\/p>\n
By this point, if every other track had been as memorable as \u201cDaydreamin\u2019,\u201d it would be a passable product but unfortunately, \u201cSmile\u201d is a very decent but simply passable song that really has no effect on saving anything. The closer, the almost seven minute \u201cCrawl\u201d is decent enough but it really does nothing to rescue the album from the mediocrity it was created from.<\/p>\n
If the Barenaked Ladies wants to save themselves from touring the same worn out circuit as Sugar Ray, Smash Mouth and Everclear, they need to go back to the drawing board and get back to their roots. It\u2019s the only way!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":91,"featured_media":31928,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5986],"rating":[5616],"class_list":["post-43656","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-barenaked-ladies","rating-rating-d"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/43656","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/91"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43656"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/43656\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43656"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=43656"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=43656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}