Tepid.
It really pains me to say it, but the new Mates of State album just isn’t that great.
I had really high hopes based on Team Boo, their previous album. I thought, “How could it get any better than this?” and then I found out that it might not. Team Boo had a giddy tunefulness about it and each song was carried by strong melodies. The opening trifecta of “Ha Ha,” “Whiner’s Bio” and “Fluke” just floored me. And last year’s “All Day” EP contains my favorite MOS song to date, “Along for the Ride.”
The unfortunately-named “Bring It Back” just doesn’t really have any zing to it. The songs are too long, the melodies don’t have any immediacy and it seems like Kori and Jason are really bogged down with heavy life stuff.
I thought this might be an album that I would just have to listen to a few times before it really grew on me. I’ve been listening to it for a while, though, and it’s just not thrilling me. Even the best songs are flawed — “For the Actor” drops the fun disco-vibe halfway through and then kind of slumps into a sugar coma. “Nature and the Wreck,” a drum-less, string-tinged ballad, is indeed very pretty, but it is the one song that could have been longer.
Each Mates of State album has a few clunkers, but this album seems like nothing but. All the elements are there, but there’s just nothing to get excited about.