Review Summary: Their most heartened and energetic piece since Let Love In.
The Goo Goo Dolls reached peak popularity during their run from 1995’s
A Boy Named Goo to 2006’s
Let Love In. Like many hugely successful commercial acts, when father time arrived to usher them out of the limelight and into “legacy act” territory, the band seemed a little lost – unsure of how to evolve and taking some questionable chances with their sound in the process. 2010’s
Something For The Rest of Us felt like their first non-essential record, offering something of a resume-to-date only with less hooks and diminished returns. Each album since then felt like an effort to transform who they are, and despite their efforts to reinvent the wheel, the gap between the Goo Goo Dolls and relevance only continued to widen. While it’s safe to say that their best days are long behind them,
Chaos in Bloom serves as a love letter to those who’ve managed to stick with the band throughout their latter discography. It's a return-to-roots record, and it also happens to be their most heartened and energetic piece since
Let Love In.
On
Chaos in Bloom, John Rzeznik handled the production for the first time ever and cut out most of the unnecessary bells and whistles that have plagued a lot of their recent work. Recorded throughout the pandemic, the album takes the Goo Goo Dolls' sound and strips it down to the essentials – these are ten straightforward, catchy pop-rock tunes that sound like they were extracted right out of the group’s prime. “Yeah, I Like You” ensures that listeners are plunged into that sensation immediately, featuring uptempo percussion, prominent guitars, and a rejuvenated Rzeznik on vocals. Elsewhere, the band displays its versatility with the forlorn and aching – but ever smooth – chorus on ‘War’, the brilliantly layered vocals and intimate acoustic setting of ‘Save Me From Myself’, and the angelically harmonious ‘Loving Life.’ Bassist and songwriter Robby Takac also gets more exposure on vocals than he’s had in a long time, taking lead on the aforementioned ‘Loving Life’ and then again on ‘Past Mistakes’ while helping to deliver that rougher edge that the Goo Goo Dolls have been sorely lacking lately. The best moment comes when the band delivers a slow-burning power ballad via ‘Let the Sun’; it’s an uplifting anthem about overcoming power/corruption for the greater good, and the way the song explodes into its melodic final moments is satisfying in a way that feels like
vintage Goo Goo Dolls. It’s no ‘Iris’, but it’s better than this band has any right to be in 2022.
The primary reason that
Chaos in Bloom won’t be a bigger deal is because, well, the Goo Goo Dolls have
already been a bigger deal. Maybe that’s a nice way of saying that they’re outdated and old news, but if that’s being honest, then it’s also true that
Chaos in Bloom released into the late 90s or early 00s would have been a highly celebrated release. None of this matters of course, but the simple fact that the Goo Goo Dolls are still able to deliver something rivalling the works of their most popular era speaks volumes, and it is reason for optimism as the band treks even deeper into a discography that has now spanned five different decades. After a string of records that generated very little excitement even among their most dedicated fans, it’s nice to finally see the Goo Goo Dolls back to doing what they do best: writing instrumentally sound grunge-pop with memorable melodies and earworm choruses. The solution to continued success, as it turns out, isn't so complicated after all.
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