Review Summary: The Maine tries some new stuff and it works.
Growing beyond their post-emo pop punk roots by the mid 2010s, The Maine peaked on their 2017 release Lovely Little Lonely, absorbing the spirit of late-90s radio rock in the vein of Third Eye Blind and Goo Goo Dolls to spectacular effect. You Are OK was a disappointing followup, while XOXO was somewhere between the two with a handful of solid songs. To this listener, The Maine’s biggest misstep was appealing to mainstream pop sensibilities; they hadn’t exactly sold out, but it *felt* like it.
With their new, self-titled album, would The Maine keep trending in that direction? Do something different? Yes on both accounts. Sort of. Doubling down on big hooks, this self-titled album sounds like The Maine growing beyond Top 40 aspirations in favor of arena rock, with huge, grandiose songs, a theme introduced in “how to exit a room,” which hearkens back to memorable moments of Lovely Little Lonely as much as it evokes a modern take on Journey or whathaveyou.
This arena rock pivot is exemplified by standout “thoughts I have while lying in bed,” and the generally-excellent second half, which thankfully exorcizes the trash-pop synthesized strings of You Are OK in favor of light touches of 80s synth and prominent guitar in a mix that’s right on point. It’s a surprising success at the sort of thing a band like Kings Of Leon tried to do on Only By The Night; and surprisingly smart at times, with “cars & caution signs” wrapping a krautrock beat into The Maine’s sound the same way that Lovely Little Lonely standout “Black Butterflies and Deja Vu” did with drum and bass. It’s an unexpected treat, and one of the album’s best tracks.
Even when The Maine plays to their poppier side, as on “blame,” it generally works better than where they’ve done similar things on the last two albums. The band has always written solid hooks, but there’s enough variety to keep it from feeling too much like a generic pop song despite the overly-slick production. Elsewhere, “leave in five” sounds like The Maine trying to write a Bruno Mars song, which sounds silly when you write it out but actually adds some nice variety to the album.
Released on 8/1/23 - neatly corresponding to the band’s 8123 label, and obviously a self-titled album, The Maine really needed to make a positive statement, to wrap everything the band does well into a cohesive album, and while not perfect, this record is a competent effort that feels like the most proper follow-up the group has yet presented to their 2017 peak. And although there are certainly moments reminiscent of their previous efforts, they spend enough time trying to do something new (for them) that it pushes the band forward rather than merely rehashing past success. For a group that’s been doing this as long as The Maine, that’s certainly worth commending.
