- New Direction [intro]
The title actually has intro in it in case you weren’t sure. This is not how I expected the album to open at all. It’s a thrash metal 46 second song with death metal vocals. I had to check it actually was Sugar Ray and I hadn’t gone on another playlist by accident. I wonder if it’s intended as a segue from their earlier stuff to their new sound? It’s certainly heavier than I expected. Can’t really judge it as a song but it gets your attention
- Every Morning
Brave to open the album properly with their biggest hit. Not a lot more to say about this so rather than leaving this blank, Mark McGrath won three series of Rock n Roll Jeopardy. Turns out he knows a lot about music.
- Falls Apart
This starts with a decent pop punky riff, reminds me of Not The Same by Bodyjar off the THPS games, a creeping bass line like it’s going to build into something and then - the dreaded DJ turntable and the song completely changes to a sincere rock ballad. It’s a bit of a muddled mess this because the riffs start back up while Mark McGrath is doing his best to be earnest. The chorus has nice lapping vocals though and is quite big. The song’s actually alright for what it is and has a really good bridge, it’s just the guitar is so out of place. So far, not a bad listen at all.
- Personal Space Invader
The inverse of the preceding song, this starts with a really shonky opening (with robotic sound effects) before bursting into another decent pop punk-esque opening. The vocals here remind me of something you’d hear from Guttermouth but then he suddenly adapts a Gary Numan like voice for some of the lines. This is similar to the above song in another way, how there’s a really solid song at the core but there’s a couple of elements introduced which don’t quite work - not enough to make it a bad song though, although the sound effects pick back up. Feel like if they binned off this DJ then it’d improve them no end.
- Live and Direct
This features KRS-One! and like the REM song, he doesn’t really add anything to the song other than shouting odd interludes. This is a bit of a slog after the strong start to the album. Slow funk rock type song, it’s a bit of a blast of nothing and McGrath sounds bored doing it and KRS One does even less than he did on Radio Song
- Someday
This is more akin to what I think the public perception of Sugar Ray is - radio friendly pop rock songs. It’s pleasant enough but like Live and Direct, it seems like they’re just slogging through it and there’s no energy for it. After the opening blast of the first 4 songs, things have taken a real downhill turn. Not in the sense that the last two songs have been bad because they’re not offensive, but they’re just there.
- Aim For Me
Well this certainly snaps out of the slump of the last two songs. This starts with gang vocals and veering quickly into a skate punk song. McGrath (if it is him) sounds unrecognisable and his voice actually really suits this style. I actually really like this song and would probably choose to listen to it quite a lot. Best one so far
- Ode to the Lonely Hearted
Do not like that title at all but despite myself, I quite like it. It’s another ballady type song but it has some Beach Boys lite harmonies in the background as McGrath sings and it’s quite nice? I think what’s surprising me most is that the songs are all quite well crafted and solid. Every Morning’s a bit of an odd one as it’s so engrained but to hear these songs fresh and realise that they were quite good at doing a few styles within rock is a bit surprising.
- Burning Dog
Scrap what I said above because I think this is the first proper stinker. The funkehhhh bass is rapped over while police sirens/fake radio reports chime in. The DJ again shows how unnecessary they are and actually are a detriment. This sounds like a high school band trying to do rap rock would do. Turd
- Even Though
This is probably the closest one to Every Morning in terms of style but I also quite like this one. It’s a nice little ditty (but again, there’s an annoying little side effect in the background). Luckily that doesn’t ruin it, and there’s some good group vocals going on. I really like the chorus to this - it seems to come out of nowhere with a creeping bassline to amp things up. Enjoyed this one quite a lot and it’s another I’ll probably return to
- Abracadabra.
This is a cover of the Steve Miller Band song. I really fucking hate their DJ as the cover is quite straight apart from Sir Spins A Lot absolutely ruining his bits. The song’s pretty faithful to the original but with annoying sound effects. Dont think I need to hear McGrath sing the words ‘black panties’ again
- Glory
Not going to comment on the DJ’s sound effects any more but they’re here again. This is one of those songs that’s quite hard to comment on because it just is what it is, a solid hard rock type song. One thing Sugar Ray do well is use the backing vocals of the other band members. It’s not that unreminiscent of STP this song and that’s enough for me. Decent but not a whole bunch to comment on.
- New Direction [outro]
Miss when albums labelled songs as being an outro. If the opening was a thrash type song, this is Every Morning but played on a Moog (I think, probably got that completely wrong)… Can’t rally judge that
Overall I was pleasantly surprised by this. More than one song are ones I’d come back to again and there was the only the odd absolute duffer. It’s certainly better written than I expected and I think I like Sugar Ray
7.5/10