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Review: Candlebox-Love Stories and Other Musings [Album]

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Review: Candlebox-Love Stories and Other Musings [Album]

AudioNest/Fontana/Universal | "Candlebox return with an album so full of optimism and catchy tunes you just may contract diabetes"

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Last Edited by: Ffion Davies April 16th, 2012.
Seattle-based rockers Candlebox return with an album so full of optimism and catchy tunes you just may contract diabetes.

Formed in 1990, Candlebox saw their self-titled debut album sell over four million copies thanks to catchy as hell hooks, sing-along choruses and a positivity that countered the seriousness of the grunge scene perfectly. Their single ‘Far Behind’ stayed in the singles chart for several months on its release (with a re-recording featured here).

LISTEN: 'She Comes Over Me'


Their fifth studio album, Love Stories & Other Musings brings yet more of the same with a heavier approach. Opening track ‘Youth in Revolt’ is a perfect introduction to the album, short but with riffs that keep you air-guitaring around your room long after the album finishes. The short but exquisitely executed guitar solos of ‘She Comes Over Me’ and ‘Believe in It’ complement the music rather than feeling like an obligation to remaining a ‘rock-band’ and act as a reminder that this band still has a strong stake in modern soft-rock.

Produced by Ken Andrews (Pete Yorn, A Perfect Circle, Tenacious D, Beck), Love Stories & Other Musings showcases nine new tracks but also features re-mastered versions of their classic hits ‘Far Behind’ and ‘Cover Me’; thankfully the only real change being better sound quality.

Since their debut the band has released three studio albums; Lucy, Happy Pills and Into the Sun. Love Stories does a good job of capturing the bands repertoire, with ‘Turn Your Heart Around’, a piano ballad that never sinks into the pretentiousness of similar work by other bands (Guns ‘n’ Roses 'November Rain' comes to mind) and ‘Sweet Summertime’, a track so cheerful it sounds like it was written specifically for the new American Pie movie.

Lyrically, the album stays on safe ground, with songs about girls, summertime and breakups. This isn’t to say the band fed their songs through the cliché-machine before production; it’s actually a welcome break from the wave of serious artists finding fame these days, with each song delivered in such a throw-about fun manner they could be singing about the decline of the Albanian textile industry and no-one would mind.

The only real criticism of the album would be that there is only so much you can differentiate between the songs, but when they’re this catchy that’s hardly an issue, and the record does a good job of mixing heavy tracks such as ‘Lifelike Song’ with the laid-back harmonies of songs like ‘Come Home’.

So if upbeat grunge-pop is your scene, and even if it’s not, Love Stories & Other Musings is a perfect companion to the summer; warm, well-crafted and catchy enough to keep you listening until Christmas 2015.

Candlebox-Love Stories & Other Musings is out now

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