Third Eye Blind at our Summer Concert Series May 10th

Buyer beware: “Non-Dairy Creamer” is not on Third Eye Blind’s new album Ursa Major. But what you’ll find is definitely worth the $10-$15 dollars you’ll pay for [or minutes you’ll waste in downloading] the album.

I’ll admit—I wasn’t expecting much from their new album. It doesn’t matter that I’ve been a Third Eye Blind fan since I was a wee one. I still expected the few good singles they played at our Summer Concert Series show back in May to be the only ones worth listening to on the album, but I was pleasantly surprised by what I found.

The album starts off with “Can You Take Me,” with Stephan Jenkins echoes of “let’s start a riot, me and you,” just confirming that rebels without causes will always be sexy. Track two, “Don’t Believe a Word,” is the second recently-released Third Eye Blind song but first single from the album. It’s more or less a prototype for the rest of Ursa Major. If you like the sound of it (basically a slightly-revamped version of what you imagine Third Eye Blind sounding like), you should like the rest of the album.

The next few songs—“Bonfire,” “Sharpe Knife,” and “One in Ten”—slow it down, possibly forcing one to reminisce about the first two minutes of “Motorcycle Drive By” off the band’s self-titled album. To be honest, “One in Ten” sounds like a deep cut off Out of the Yein. You can decide whether that’s a good thing or a bad one for yourself.

The album picks up a little with “Summer Town” but most of the songs do seem to show the band’s age as they rock out a little less than the Third Eye Blind you may be used to (Ursa Major lacks any sort of “Semi-Charmed Life”). Most of these songs don’t really sound like earth-shattering material from this 90s-favorite, but it’s sure to satiate anyone that’s been longing for some new music from the band they grew up loving.