Collective Soul has long occupied one of the barely-outer orbits of mainstream rock, occasionally enjoying a radio hit, but seldom achieving startling critical praise or sales. Blender is their fifth studio effort, and, predictably, it gestures towards progressive trends in rock while remaining rooted in band leader Ed Roland’s largely forgettable songwriting.
Blender kicks off with “Skin,” which in turn kicks off with a so-so guitar hook it refuses to abandon. The song’s raucous combination of “hey”s and heavy, percussive guitar attacks help to offset its one-chord monotony, but even that energy feels shallow, and the song loses its charm surprisingly quickly. “Vent” doesn’t help things much, being another forward-looking but backward-rooted rocker that depends too heavily on novel guitar sounds to compensate for its simple structure.
“Why pt.2,” the album’s first single, takes things up a notch in the songwriting quality department, but does so at the cost of revisiting the band’s older material, notwithstanding the slightly trippy lead guitar work. It’s not a bad song, but it’s not a particularly interesting song either, and therein lies Collective Soul’s perpetual rut.
Blender’s fourth track, “10 Yrs Later,” sounds suspiciously like a re-write of their last album’s “Run,” made a hit by the Varsity Blues soundtrack. Again, there’s nothing especially wrong with the song; a soothing acoustic guitar mixes with spacey guitar leads and a mellow, inviting pace. Listening to it once, perhaps twice, however, one already feels entirely familiar with the song and ready to move on to different things.
The album continues through seven more tunes, all of them polished and thoughtful enough that it pains me to admit how forgettable most of them are. The band is obviously talented and experienced at constructing enjoyable pop-rock songs, even if they generally follow other bands’ footsteps instead of branching out on their own. Roland is gifted with a plastic voice that can be harnessed for both caressing and snarling, and writes solid melodies (even if his lyrics aren’t much worth thinking about). Drummer Shane Evans deserves a lot of credit for energizing the band’s heavier tunes, which otherwise might lean towards terminal blandness.
Highlights include “Boast,” which moves between sunny, poppy verses and choruses ripe with juicy riffing – the two halves feel fairly violently thrust together, but the result is more engaging than off-putting – and “Perfect Day,” another good-vibes tune punctuated by irresistible melodies and some great piano work courtesy of Elton John.
Also of note is the band’s cover of “You Speak My Language,” originally written by the late Mark Sandman, singer and two-string slide bassist for the incomparable Boston rock band Morphine. Collective Soul takes the song’s already energetic structure and turns it into a full-bore rocker, helping to add some pep to the second half of Blender, which leans too heavily towards the gentile. Also helping this cause is the album’s closer, “Happiness,” which sounds like a slightly faster, slightly more futuristic version of “Heavy,” another successful single off of Dosage.
Is Blender a bad album? Certainly not. It’s sure to please fans, and may earn some well-deserved radio time. At the same time, however, it must be admitted that it offers very few truly engaging moments, moving rock nowhere new and tossing out more than its share of boring riffs and uninspired songwriting.
