Boxes

Goo Goo Dolls

Warner Brothers, 2016

This CD starts off strong enough, with four songs that sound like they could have come from the bands commercial heyday, A Boy Called Goo and Dizzy Up the Girl. There’s a strong sense of melody and pop rock feel running throughout. Fans will recognize this as the band who’s introspective confessional numbers are still in steady rotation on commercial radio.

Title track, “Boxes” has a positively lush production that feels overly sweet but is still listenable. “Reverse” is the strongest song that strides in a new direction. This aches to be a Bruno Mars/Kesha club type song, and nearly succeeds.

Halfway into the disc, the songs become something else. No longer a rock band trying something else on to see how it feels, the band is pushed forward with some piano driven tunes, and it’s awkard all around. “Prayer in My Pocket,” and “Long Way Home” struggle to find their footing.

This is one disc strictly for the die hard fans.