Maroon

10/03/2000 6:00 PM, Yahoo! Music
Ken Micallef

The follow-up to Stunt, BNL's quadruple-platinum breakthrough of 1998, is Maroon, an impossibly brisk, surprisingly humorless album of gorgeous, grown-up pop songs that recall everyone from the Beatles ("Never Do Anything") to Brian Wilson ("Off The Hook") and Brazilian artist Joao Gilberto ("Conventioneers"). While some of the album sounds vaguely cheesy, like the organ line in "Humour Of The Situation" and the ineffective "Sell, Sell, Sell," Maroon could quite possibly be the band's creative alte werk. The writing feels fresh, the performances exuberant without spiraling over the top, and Don Was's production is even-keeled and unobtrusive.

Songs like "Pinch Me," the first single, come out with a light but lovely acoustic guitar hook a la Paul Simon, and a clean, thoughtful vocal line. "Go Home" sounds like the kind of rootsy folk rock the band America would have been glad to write; "Helicopters" has an attractive jangle; the closing, incongruously tensed "Tonight Is The Night I Fell Asleep At The Wheel" has a kind of quaint, Kurt Weill-ish feel. There's a hidden track, too, that holds eerie resonance.

Overall, Maroon may be a little darker, a little more mature than past BNL works. But being more mature and a little darker myself these days, I consider that a good thing. You might, too.