I'm a huge fan of Blue October. Huge as in they rocketed into my top ten favorite artists in 2006 when I first came on board with their album Foiled, after which I backtracked and picked up History For Sale - one of the best albums I've heard in years.
I fell in love with Blue October's extremely unique and nontraditional alternative rock sound. Musically the band is solid but also offset with a violin, something used to great effect in some of their best songs ("Hate Me," "Inner Glow," "Chameleon Boy"). Lyrically, lead singer Justin Furstenfeld commands his words with a distinguished singing voice that falls somewhere between Peter Gabriel and Bobby Gaylor.
With Blue October's 2009 release Approaching Normal now out, I grabbed a copy and... well, damn it.
Approaching Normal stumbles pretty hard out of the gate. To be honest, the first half of this album borderlines on being garbage, especially thanks to the whiny, miserable Justin spending time sounding like a depressed teenager who just got dumped the day before prom. Opening track "Weight of the World" sure feels heavy as an opening track, depressing the listener right away ("Well liars they leave a guilty trail / And let me tell you something people / I've been lying for fucking years"). "Say It" certainly has a catching musical hook, but stumbles with more emo-inspired lyrics that do nothing but complain about the world and failed relationships. First single "Dirt Room" is a bit of a standout, if only because it sounds like a song that was ripped from Foiled, featuring more trademark Blue October style than anything else on this disc. "Been Down" and "My Never" were slower-paced tracks that never got over the album's initial bitch-fest, so by track seven (7!!!) it's forgiveable that I actually took the album out and stopped listening to it.
Coming back a few hours later I picked up where I left off and found a bit of redemption. The latter half of the album trades melodrama for melody, and with great success. "Kangaroo Cry" switches off the complaining and drives into self-reflection, which finally begins the healing process. It's a track with pleasing melodies and a catchy chorus. Okay, so far so good. From here we spill right into "Picking Up the Pieces" - something we should have been doing since track two. While musically similar to "Kangaroo Cry," it is certainly apparent that we are heading for a more positive world. Unfortunately the next track, "Jump Rope," is so misplaced on this album it just feels awkward. Undeniably the best track on this album, "Jump Rope" is purely simple: easy music, easy lyrics, easy hooks ("Life's like a jump rope; up, down, up, down, up, down"). It's almost sick, actually, to hear Justin's miserable life drill into this fluff-piece - it's just too awkwardly placed on this album to be taken seriously. Two songs featuring "Blue" in the titles round out the album, and finally rock hard. While the healing process is apparently complete ("Thought my head was made of sadness / But my heart is mending"), it's just too little, too late at the end of the album.
It says a lot about Blue October as a band: they are never willing to settle on one sound, which produced great results on History For Sale and Foiled, but fails to provide a cohesively-pleasing album with Approaching Normal. Too many lyrics feel cheap, too many songs are stuck in emo-land, and the album saves itself too late in the game to be a standout.
I will take a couple of tracks away from Appraching Normal and give them a home on my iPod, but that first half of the album can just stay far, far away from me. Here's hoping that their next album reflects all the healing done on this one.
B3 out.
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