While it is less of a poor attempt at mainstream than OBTN (which succeeded in its singles, but the album cuts were trying to do the same thing, and with the exception of 'Be Somebody' ended up being very forgettable), based on the talk from the band over the last year or so they seemed to indicate a marriage of they're Southern rock stylings and OBTN, but with the exception of 'The Immortals' I don't hear that.
Is it bad? No, but it breaks no new ground either as a rock act or as a further pop-styled act, and comes off as simply making something because it's expected to have new album every 2 years and they can continue to make money on it. I like a few tracks, like 'Radioactive', 'The End' (probably my favorite), 'The Immortals' and 'Pick-up Truck', but the rest never takes off and is largely forgettable. Disappointment.
They really are in a position where they can't win with their old fans I feel, I'm not whining about them taking their sound to the mainstream, but there's no playful entertainment that was found in their first 3 records. Consequently, were they ever to really sound like their early material again, they'd make all the OBTN bandwagoners mad.
The one benefit of the radio-ization of KOL is the much lower incidence of ear-straining screaming from Caleb, which has been virtually erased at this point. During certain songs on their first 3 records it contributed to the song, but a lot of the time I just wanted to be able to delete the vocal track and listen the instruments.
FTW!
