It looks like I'm in the minority, judging from so many glowing reviews on here, but for me this new album by the Wallflowers was a disappointment. A frustrating mix of great songs and mediocre ones. My least favorite song on here is the opening track, "Hospital for Sinners." Interesting lyrics, but the musical composition is just boring and repetitive. The two cuts with Mick Jones (from the Clash and Big Audio Dynamite) are better, but they sound out of place within the context of the other songs on this album. But then on track 6 --- finally --- the Wallflowers deliver a truly great song with "Love is a Country" and you wonder why the rest of the songs couldn't be this potent and wonderful. Really, that song towers over everything else on this album. They hit the mark again with "Constellation Blues," another track that ranks with one of their best, but for me those two outstanding songs don't redeem the dullness of many of the other tracks on here. Okay, maybe that's too harsh; the rest of the tracks aren't all dull, but compared to some of the truly impressive songs that the Wallflowers have recorded over the years, many of these new songs just don't reach the same lofty heights. And I was hoping for more of that old magic on this new album.
It looks like I'm in the minority, judging from so many glowing reviews on here, but for me this new album by the Wallflowers was a disappointment. A frustrating mix of great songs and mediocre ones. My least favorite song on here is the opening track, "Hospital for Sinners. " Interesting lyrics, but the musical composition is just boring and repetitive. The two cuts with Mick Jones (from the Clash and Big Audio Dynamite) are better, but they sound out of place within the context of the other songs on this album. But then on track 6 --- finally --- the Wallflowers deliver a truly great song with "Love is a Country" and you wonder why the rest of the songs couldn't be this potent and wonderful. Really, that song towers over everything else on this album. They hit the mark again with "Constellation Blues," another track that ranks with one of their best, but for me those two outstanding songs don't redeem the dullness of many of the other tracks on here. Okay, maybe that's too harsh; the rest of the tracks aren't all dull, but compared to some of the truly impressive songs that the Wallflowers have recorded over the years, many of these new songs just don't reach the same lofty heights. And I was hoping for more of that old magic on this new album.