Well, here we are with another Barenaked Ladies record. I haven\u2019t been a fan of anything they\u2019ve done since at least 2010, but I figured I\u2019d give them benefit of the doubt. It\u2019s been longer between records than they\u2019ve done in a while and I thought things might be different this time. Their last album, Fake Nudes<\/i>, landed with a thud in America and became their first since their debut not to chart here. That\u2019s really saying a lot, so in a sense, there\u2019s a lot riding on this record. Does it live up?<\/p>\n
The answer is no; they still are trying to write songs like it\u2019s 2003. \u201cFlip\u201d is the worst example. It\u2019s one of their worst singles and it\u2019s also the opening track, which is not a great way to start a record. This band really suffered when Steven Page packed up and left. They\u2019ve been struggling ever since, bringing in different songwriters and sometimes having four singers throughout the record. \u201cGood Life\u201d is a disaster where fifty-something white guys try to rap again. By contrast, \u201cNew Disaster\u201d is above average and is quite possibly one of the best tracks here.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m just gonna say it: Anytime Kevin Hearn or Jim Creegan take the mic, I skip it. Hearn can\u2019t sing to save his life and the songs are trash either way. \u201cBig Back Yard\u201d is one of those songs that don\u2019t need to be here. Ed Robertson\u2019s \u201cRoll Out\u201d is horrible and ludicrous. \u201cGod Forbid,\u201d on the other hand, is almost lovely and shows that BNL can still write quality material when they really want to.<\/p>\n
This band probably could\u2019ve stopped recording about three albums ago and been fine touring the nostalgia circuit. Instead, they keep coming back with records that perform worse and worse and wind up in the bargain bin. Unfortunately, this is another example.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":91,"featured_media":34437,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5986],"rating":[11205],"class_list":["post-46276","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-barenaked-ladies","rating-rating-d-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46276","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=46276"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46276\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46276"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=46276"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=46276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}