Silverlake Neophyte recalls 3EB’s classic Motorcycle Drive-By, with Jenkins taking on the role of sage stalwart offering advice to his younger fledglings.
Instead, it’s a beautiful, fragmented ballad recalling Bon Iver at his most tender. To The Sea threatens the same trap style that their previous song 2X Tigers succumbed to. It shows that, nearly thirty years in, Jenkins can still conjure magic and mastery in three-minute snippets. Before that, it’s a gentle, emotive and excellent etching of heartbreak and confusion. Rather than leap into an arms-aloft crescendo, the song stops just as its reaching its apex. Built around Jenkins’ laidback vocal and tuneful acoustics, it sets the tone for an album that’s stately and subdued.Įven more successful is Box Of Bones. Opener Goodbye To The Days Of Ladies And Gentlemen is a restrained rumination on modern society (“we’ll never sing about tits and ass again,” wryly laments Jenkins at one point). Only the surf rock ripper Again has the roofdown revelry of old. While 2019’s Screamer is blanketed by layers of stormy distortion and a glossy sheen, Our Bande Apart feels like a group impacted by the world around them. It’s Third Eye Blind at their most mature, measured and considered. Funeral Singers, originally by Californe, is given a 3EB makeover to wonderful effect – its gothic cogitations (“all my friends are weeds and rain, all my friends are half-gone birds”) could have come straight from the Stephan Jenkins playbook, while its punchy guitars and anthemic backing vocals are made for arenas.Īnd speaking of arenas, Our Bande Apart isn’t a record made for them. Much more successful is the actual cover. It contains all the same hallmarks – the crashing drums, the lilting acoustic and the echo-drenched guitar whine – to the point where it threatens to derail the whole album. Only one song is aware of this fact.ĭust Storm (How We Hold Each Other Right Now) is such a carbon copy of The Cure’s Just Like Heaven that you half expect Robert Smith to be sending his subpoena as we speak. Two of the best songs on Third Eye Blind’s new album are covers.