“Aaaaah Hoobastank, didn’t they do that ‘Reason’ song back in 04?”  Diehard fans of the band must get rightly pissed off with hearing that, but I’m afraid the song remains one of those tunes everybody remembers but few can recall who recorded it.  I am no diehard fan, but I don’t really rate ‘The Reason’ that much and prefer to hark back to 2001’s ‘Crawling In The Dark’ for inspiration.  Back then they were one of a bunch of bands tugging at the shirttails of Nickelback, being strapped together with duct tape and thrown in a box labeled ‘Nu metal’.  It quickly became uncool to be such, so these days their box says ‘post-grunge’!

 Most of us will be forgiven for having lost track of Hoobastank, and you may even be guilty of using my opening statement, but they are indeed still around and this is album number four from the Californian four piece.  There will be few who take the time to discover it now I guess, but here at Shakenstir we are somewhat more discerning!  And that’s a good thing right now, because this album is really quite good.

They don’t break much new ground with it but the performance is astute and polished.  There remains an association with Nickelback, but only really on the more commercial tracks like singles ‘My Turn’ and ‘So Close, So Far.’  Others, like ‘The Letter’, serve much better to illustrate the band’s style.  A style which is hard but firm, with chunky guitar riffs, a chugging rhythm section and clarity of vocals, which may all still sound like Nickelback but there’s a harder edge here.  When that edge gets even harder, the band is at its best, with tracks like ‘Who The Hell Am I?’ and ‘Gone Gone Gone’, both of which exude an abundance of unrestrained energy.

Lyrically it’s all quite mundane and doesn’t really move out of Sum 41 territory so it’s really in its musical content that it shines through.  The band performs well as a unit and they do so even better on stage.  There isn’t enough here to invite the more sceptical to climb on board but if you’re getting tired of listening to DARK HORSE then give this a spin!

3/5

TC