Folks who were digging the Goo Goo Dolls back in the early ‘90s have grown to find the band they once loved rendered virtually unrecognizable over the past decade or so. The Buffalo, NY, trio, led by John Rzeznik, always had pop smarts, but it took a couple of hit singles for their smarts to be put on full display. At the beginning of their career, they were sort of an agreeably messy pop/rock band, much like their idols, the
Replacements (who I discovered partially due to the Goos). Of course, after the ‘Mats signed with a major label, their sound underwent a gradual transformation from messy to shiny, and the Goos have done the same, albeit with significantly more success. Each album since their 1995 breakthrough, A Boy Named Goo, has sounded cleaner and been more ballad-heavy than the one before it, culminating in their eighth studio album, Let Love In, a fairly decent set of mid-tempo guitar pop that’s likely to be blaring from an Adult Alternative radio station near you every time you turn the dial.
By no means is Let Love In a bad album. Rzeznik is certainly capable of writing a pop/rock anthem, as earlier smashes like “Name” and “Iris” prove. There’s no grand-slam hit on this album that matches up to those, but nearly every song on this album has a chorus that practically leaps out of the speakers and jumps through your ears. Case in point: the anthemic title track, the chorus of which I was humming to myself constantly after only one listen. Additionally, the Goos songs typically have a timelessness to them. It’s very easy to picture many of these songs being hits ten or even twenty years ago, in the heyday of Bryan Adams and Bon Jovi (hey, they both made a couple of good songs, right?). However, the album teeters on the edge of overproduction, thanks to studio vet Glen Ballard. Ballard literally polishes down any sonic imperfection this album could possibly have, sucking the life out of a couple of tracks in the process. The album’s sheen is occasionally detrimental, particularly on the slower numbers, all of which have a very similar quality to them. Ultimately, Let Love In is a mixed bag, but it’s the natural progression in terms of the band’s musical arc.
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