speaking of focusing on the positive . . . who likes music?

piebald – all ears, all eyes, all the time – 3 stars

i’ll be honest, when i first popped in this cd, i was pissed. after falling utterly in love with this band after hearing their previous cd we are the only friends we have a few years ago, and going to a half-dozen fantastic live shows since then, i expected more. where was the same poppy goodness? where was the fun? where were the great hooky riffs? where was that simple addictive pleasure in every song?

so i was let down. it hurt at first but i didn’t give up on them. i listened over and over and started imagining them playing these songs during a live show. i’d always enjoyed what they did with their other material, how would it be to see them perform this stuff?

and so from there i decided the album was salvageable, because the 4 or 5 tracks that would work great live were actually pretty decent songs, even if the album isn’t great start to finish like the last one. i even saw them last week, and they did what i thought they would do, which is play the highlights from this album alongside a string of unstoppable classics. the show at the troubadour gets 5 big bright stars then — i haven’t danced around that much at a concert in a long time. the album, however, would be best suited to those who already own their better titles and want to complete their collection and/or sing along to those great new songs they’ll be playing at the shows. just means you get a few tracks you can do without.

for an example of what they did right, check out haven’t tried it — featuring travis on piano! i love this song even though certain people insist it sounds like carny music. sure was fun to sing along to, that’s all i have to say.