The muddy, colourless garage-rock stylings across the board couldn’t feel more played out, and when the attempts at sounding somewhat lighter or more less clunky are piled on like on Ways or Who Am I, it makes for the sort of misconstrued indie-pop composition where the composition ends up so drained without fail, and the end product lacks any real character or driving force. Neither the title track nor The Kids Are Coming (To Take You Down) establish it as a production technique that works given how everything is crushed up at the front of the mix with extraneous synth whirrs and blocky production to beat away any semblance of remaining groove, and while Screamer never hits lows like this again, it’s not like there’s much to praise overall. The production is the main offender here overall, with the all-or-nothing approach of modern indie being embraced wholeheartedly for loud, frequently bloated squallers that does no justice to the sort of lithe alt-rock instrumentation that Third Eye Blind are capable of. It’s not like the general trending downward of Third Eye Blind’s material makes this that much of a surprise, but for a band who’d seemed as though they’d begun to make some form of headway, to stall out as royally as this isn’t optimal for anyone involved. As such, Screamer falls victim to the same fate, lacking so much of the pop appeal that Third Eye Blind once had despite keeping such a relative proximity to it, and simply feeling like a forgettable husk of an album that rarely pieces together much in the way of a good idea.
Rather, the ‘indie’ that Third Eye Blind have a greater kinship on Screamer couldn’t be more on-brand with a band past their prime and looking to regain something of a footing within the scene, as they pull from the murky, overwrought fare that characterises the genre’s modern incarnations and has never been any good. The big one is Smashing Pumpkins’ Billy Corgan serving as a primary creative advisor, but with featuring credits from members of Sleigh Bells, Poliça and Marijuana Deathsquads, it looks like Third Eye Blind are putting stock in a surprising amount of indie cred to deliver something of note from Screamer.īut when it comes to the actual album itself though, not a lot of that materialises.
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And considering how it felt as though Third Eye Blind would be the latest band to make the full transition to shorter releases exclusively, not only does Screamer arrive as a surprise in the form of a new full-length, but also in the potential that the names attached to it could imbue. There’s no denying that Semi-Charmed Life, Jumper and Graduate were and, in many cases, still are college-rock staples armed with weapons-grade nostalgic bulletproofing, but the last decade especially has been pretty rough to say the least, with both Ursa Major and Dopamine having little to no staying power in the long run, and the EPs released in 20 being effectively nonexistent to anyone beyond the band’s surprisingly dedicated fanbase. Looking at Third Eye Blind’s more recent output paints the picture of a band thriving in the ‘90s who probably would’ve been better off leaving things alone before the turn of the century.
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