Every decade or so I give this album another listen, and I always come away feeling like I wish it were one of the things everyone accused it of being. It's not prog rock. It's definitely not synthpop. It's not a U2 ripoff. It's not psychedelic avant-garde post-rock. I would really love to hear Bad Religion trying to be Depeche Mode or Legendary Pink Dots. It might be terrible, it might be brilliant, but it would definitely be interesting. This… not so interesting. It's just generic rock music with a piano. Most of which feels like it needs to be faster. And it doesn't help that it's terribly produced (or, at best, produced like a punk album, which doesn't fit at all).
It does have some great lyrics, but then Bad Religion has some great lyrics scattered all over their career, so that's not enough to make me come back to this album until another decade or so has passed.
Every decade or so I give this album another listen, and I always come away feeling like I wish it were one of the things everyone accused it of being. It's not prog rock. It's definitely not synthpop. It's not a U2 ripoff. It's not psychedelic avant-garde post-rock. I would really love to hear Bad Religion trying to be Depeche Mode or Legendary Pink Dots. It might be terrible, it might be brilliant, but it would definitely be interesting. This… not so interesting. It's just generic rock music with a piano. Most of which feels like it needs to be faster. And it doesn't help that it's terribly produced (or, at best, produced like a punk album, which doesn't fit at all).
It does have some great lyrics, but then Bad Religion has some great lyrics scattered all over their career, so that's not enough to make me come back to this album until another decade or so has passed.