| CD REVIEW Collective Soul |
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Band : Collective Soul Referred to by the band’s members as their “Rabbit” album, this second self-titled album by Collective Soul is the band’s 8th studio album to date! Which came as somewhat of a surprise to me, because I had no idea that the band was even still around! Of course, most of us (ehrr…I suppose, “us”, the older generation of music fans) know the band from the years they were still with Atlantic Records, with which the band released its 5 first albums (1993’s debut Hints, Allegations, And Things Left Unsaid, which contained their hit song “Shine” and sold Platinum several times; 1995’s self-titled album which did even better saleswize; 1997’s Disciplined Breakdown, which still sold Platinum a couple of times, but not even as much as the debut, in spite of the fact that the “Heavy” single spent 15 weeks at #1 on the Mainstream Rock charts, and 3 other singles also faired well on the Rock charts…in fact this album established the band as one of the most played bands on radio during the ‘90s…possibly, the sales figures most probably suffered from the fact that the album was more Pop geared; 1999’s Dosage, which saw sales figures decline even more; and 2000’s Blender, which continued the band’s infatuattion with more Pop-geared songs, and saw their decline increase to sell only Gold, in spite of having 3 singles which did fairly well on radio). After completing their contract with Atlantic, the band went on a 2 ½ year hiatus (2002-2004), and even if they played like a dozen shows in that period (on Amerrican soil) this certainly helped in making believe they’d gone alltogether. Original lead guitarist Ross Childress left in that period, to be replaced by long-time guitar tech Joel Kosche. Still, the band was working on a return, erecting their own label El Music Group, through which they would release late 2004’s Youth (re-recorded a couple of times in the 2 years that were leading to its release), May 2005’s From The Ground Up (a collection of 8 acoustic versions of past favourites, plus new track “Youth”), and 2007’s Afterworlds. In between those albums, original drummer Shane Evans left. He was replaced during touring by session/studio drummer Ryan Hoyle – who’d already played on 8 of the 11 songs on the Youth album – and Hoyle was later confirmed as official member of the band. Afterworlds, which was exclusively available through Target stores for one year,saw an improvement in sales for the band, debuting at #25 on the Billboard Comprehensive Albums Chart (and not on the Billboard 200 chart simply because albums available from a single retailer were at that time ineligible for those charts) and at #5 on the Billboard Top Internet Albums Chart. Suddenly, the band was back in the frontlight, making and appearance on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno on August 31, 2007 (also performing the song “Hollywood”)…and returning to prime time tv on March 4, 2008, when they were the musical guest on The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson. The track “Hollywood” was also used as a theme on the popular reality show American Idol! Apparently enough reasons for Roadrunner to take notice and offer the band a worldwide deal. In the US, where the album was already issued on August 25, the efforts of the “major” label already paid off, the album debuting at #24 on the Billboard Hot 200. First single “Staring Down” (a semi-ballad including piano play and congo drumming) peaked at #17 on the Mediabase Hot AC chart and also made it into the Billboard Adult Top 40 (highest position to date is at 18). For the second single (for which again a video clip was made) the choice fell on the more upbeat album opening “Welcome All Again”…personally, I would’ve gone for the fuzzier “Fuzzy”, because with its whistled “chorus” parts, that one has an awesome potential to really become a “sing-along” during performances! Overall, you could say the material is back to the band’s tricks of the beginning days, alternating catchy Rock tunes with the occasional calmer, and lyrically balladesque track. To the latter category, one can certainly count “You” (semi-acoustic and with some keyboards added), the aforementioned single, and the album closing piano tune “Hymn For My Father”, a very sensitive tribute song to the father of frontman Ed Roland and his rhythm guitar playing brother Dean (Father Roland passed away some 4 years ago). A bit too sensitive perhaps…and I much prefer the band’’s more uplifting songs, like “Welcome All Again”, “Fuzzy”, “Dig” (my album opening favourites, with the vocally harmonized “Fuzzy” on top), the rather Grungy “My Days”, “Understanding” (with backing vocals by Listen2Three and nice “handclap” passages), “She Does” (which floats somewhere between a nice Rock Pop song, Grunge-era, and a heavy ballad – at least lyrically), “Listen Up”, and “Love” (not a ballad at all…except lyrically… in spite of its title, ànd the fact that it’s the one song on the album which sees some violin added to the music). Oh goody, did I really mention évery song on the album here? Well, I suppose that’s how catchy this album is, I suppose! For your introduction to the band’s new album, they’ve posted no less than 4 songs (“Dig”, “Welcome All Again”, “Staring Down”, and “You”) at their MySpace page. Hum, perhaps a last bit of details? Drummer Ryan Hoyle has left his place (at least in the studio) to Cheney Brannon in 2008. In September 2009 Collective Soul was inducted into the Georgia Music Hall Of Fame (they dó hail from Atlanta, Georgia, you know). During his induction speech, Ed Roland thanked a long list of collaborators from the past two decades, especially mentioning Ross Childress, Ryan Hoyle, and Cheney Brannon…and then invited long-time member Shane Evans to the stage to join in on the celebration! 90/100 Tony. |