While I applaud Candlebox for expanding their sound beyond their multi-platinum 1993 debut \u2013 a sound definitely not in style in 2016 \u2013 it seems they have only moved forward in time five years, which isn\u2019t much better.<\/p>\n
Granted, only singer Kevin Martin remains from the original lineup. The rest of the band came on board with the 2008 comeback effort Into The Sun <\/i>save drummer Dave Krusen, who actually joined up on 1998\u2019s Happy Pills<\/i>. Yet the band\u2019s sound didn\u2019t change at all from 1993 until the first part of 2012\u2019s Love Stories And Other Musings, <\/i>which showed them loosening up and moving away from the noisy, faux-grunge, generic grind that colors most of their catalog.<\/p>\n
That spirit is still on display here, but again, the music has only moved forward a few years in inspiration, sounding too much like Matchbox 20 and the other post-post-grunge bands of the late \u201890s (Everclear, Third Eye Blind, etc.). To be fair, this is a welcome sound for \u201890s kids like me who were in high school when those three bands were all over the radio; also, we had Kid Rock, Eminem, Britney Spears, Limp Bizkit, and NSYNC, so it wasn\u2019t an entirely happy time, but those days are long behind us.<\/p>\n
Point is, this is a journeyman rock album, similar in spirit and sound to what many \u201890s rock bands are making now \u2013 discs that are warm and burnished, bring some guitar thunder like before, but aren\u2019t really challenging or boundary-pushing or modern, even if they sound good and professional. There isn\u2019t much here that jumps out, but the songs are comforting and familiar, like \u201cSupernova,\u201d \u201cAlive At Last\u201d and the anthemic, trying-too-hard \u201cI Want It Back.\u201d<\/p>\n
On every Candlebox album, though, there are a few hard rock gems, and on this one it\u2019s \u201cThe Bridge.\u201d It starts out like the Foo Fighters\u2019 \u201cEverlong\u201d and transitions into a generic \u201890s alt-rocker, but picks up steam and intensity (thanks mostly to Krusen) before things let loose into two <\/i>electric guitar solos, the latter being one of the better solos I\u2019ve heard in the last few years not performed by Gary Clark Jr. or Joe Bonamassa. It\u2019s not enough to make you re-evaluate the album, but man, is it a burst of fire. Similarly, \u201cGod\u2019s Gift\u201d is the token speedy rocker, amping up the verses but awkwardly slowing down for the choruses, and it doesn\u2019t work in the end.<\/p>\n
Writing a Candlebox CD that doesn\u2019t sound like Candlebox is a fine decision 23 years into a career, but writing one that sounds like Matchbox 20 in its prime is not the way to go. \u201cOnly Because Of You\u201d is not the song that should have started this set; my money is on the pulse-racing closer \u201cKeep On Waiting,\u201d a Queens Of The Stone Age-ish riff-rocker definitely in Martin\u2019s wheelhouse and the second-best song on the record. Three solid songs does not a great album make, but for comfort food needed during a fit of music nostalgia and memories of a misspent \u201890s youth, Disappearing In Airports <\/i>is perfectly serviceable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":32722,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[7185],"rating":[5619],"class_list":["post-44492","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-candlebox","rating-rating-c"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/44492","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\/45"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44492"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/44492\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=44492"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=44492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}