Personally, I’ve never been much of a conspiracy theorist, but pushed to shove on this one, I’m going to blame John Mayer. Now, I know what you’re thinking... why blame John Mayer because Lifehouse’s third album is a little lame? It’s not like Lifehouse was all that hot even when they cranked out the most heard single of ’01, “Hanging by a Moment.” I loved that song, it had a great rock hook, but that wasn’t enough to hold one’s interest through the rest of the disc. Perhaps No Name Face said it all, this band needed a personality.
Stanley Climbfall was not the answer, even though the record was altogether better, a step up into the kind of artier rock that leads critics to say stuff like, “Someday these guys could make a great record.” But Stanley was soft in the sales department, and there still wasn’t much of a face to hang Lifehouse on, and the band was the epitome of the anti-charisma. So now, you’ve got John Mayer stealing the Grammy for best song from Usher, and there’s no place on earth safe from “Daughters,” and I know—a guy I know with four of them tells me—chicks dig John Mayer, who in and of himself I have nothing against. He can’t help it that he named his disc Heavier Things and radio ignored his efforts to grow into a blues guitarist in favor of saccharin pop. Someday, that guy’s gonna make a great record.
So here we are with Lifehouse, with Jason Wade playing acoustic guitar and the boys with their face on the cover of their third album, all thinking real hard about how a cool band with a personality would look. To his credit, Wade sounds pretty sincere on these sometimes catchy, mostly forgettable little pop ditties about falling down, breaking up, crashing and walking away. Christian fans will love the lyric “Are you ever gonna live before you die?” but mostly they’re going to find that if they wanted to listen to a really classic singer-songwriter, brooding on issues existential and spiritual, they should of picked up the new Bruce Springsteen disc. Now that guy, he’s got a face.
Ratings – Doug Van Pelt 3.5/5, Brian Quincy Newcomb 2/5
Similar sounding releases
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