Review Summary: You will regret buying this, that is, if you buy it.
Train blows. I've heard that a lot over time. People seem to get tired of Pat Monohan's Dixie Chicks-like vocals that are rotated nonstop over the adult contemporary radio waves. Drops Of Jupiter, Meet Virginia, Calling All Angels, Get To Me, and When I Look To The Sky were their previous hits, which I grew fond of since I didn't listen to the radio that much during those songs' heyday. So when I heard the catchy Cab on a VH1 commercial I decided that it must be a pretty good album to own. Well, good to listen to once every two years is what I figured out. I listen to this rarely, and therefore don't get too sick of it.
Train's keyboardist and bassist left them after My Private Nation, so they hired Johnny Colt (The Black Crowes) to play bass and Brandon Bush to play keyboards. Johnny Colt is only good for his backing vocals that he does in about half the songs, since his bass playing is quite generic. Brandon Bush is actually a worthy musician. His intro to Cab may have gotten very annoying after some time, but you can't deny that it was pretty good. Cab is a decent song, but the chorus is repeated way to many times. Despite all of that, the songwriting was still pretty decent.
You may get mixed opinions over the begining of the album. All I Ever Wanted is a slow but actually beautiful ballad, but not something you'd expect to begin the album. Get Out was cool the first four times I heard it, but then I decided it was completely lame and skip-worthy, except for the notable bridge.
The best song on the album just might be the second single, Give Myself To You. There are only two verses, but they aren't that bad. The chorus is really catchy, about a guy who doesn't want to start a relationship with a girl until he puts his head together. Unlike Cab, the chorus is only repeated a few times, just so you don't get to sick of it.
There are a few above decent songs on here. Am I Reaching You Now is basically them trying to get on another cell phone commercial. Another good song would be If I Can't Change Your Mind, in which he says he's willing to give up on a girl if she won't change. All I Hear is another good song, full of energy and relatively close to hard rock.
The only songs that are bad without getting annoying are Shelter Me and Always Remember. Shelter Me is acoustic with terrible lyrics, and unbelievably uncatchy lines. Always Remember is a ballad that was written, as it sounds, like Pat is talking to his dead parent and telling them how he'll always tell his children what the certain person was like. Sounds cheesy, right?
Pat also tries to be an R & B singer on here. Something I find odd since, like I said earlier, he sings like a dixie chick. On one of the songs it works (Am I Reaching You Now) and on one it's just plain weird (I'm Not Waiting In Line).
The last part of the album is the best. Skyscraper is an odd track which sounds cool despite the lack of anywhere near decent lyrics, thanks to the end of the intro where the electric guitar comes screaming in. Explanation is a dark sounding song that sounds nothing like the rest of the album (a good thing). Probably the next best thing to Give Myself To You is For Me It's You. It sounds like a combination of Hey Jude and Bob Marley. It includes one of the few great lines on here. "Everybody's got something they want to sing about, laugh about, cry about, it's true, for me, it's you." I bought this cd at Target the week it came out, so I got a rewarded with a bonus track called Coming Home. Not a bad song at all, this should have been on here instead of one of the crappier tracks. Sure, the lyrics make little sense, but it's fun to sing alon every time he yells out, "Coming Home!"
Overall, these songs aren't terrible, it's just the fact that you can't listen to them more than once a day without getting sick of them. The fact that Top 40 stations love them only makes it worse. Reccommendation: Don't buy it. If for some reason you are a big follower of Train then you'll enjoy it, but how many people like that have you met?
2.5/5
