Ursa Major

Late afternoon, the sky was a new-born baby blue. The sparse clouds sat slothfully in the sky like scoops of homemade whipped cream. As I steered around a serpentine, tree-lined street near my home, the sunlight stabbed through the lumps of foliage like transparent arrows. Although deep in the August heat, I thought to myself: "It truly is summer".

The sound tying the whole atmosphere together was the album pumping out of my car's stereo, Third Eye Blind's latest, Ursa Major. For anyone who remembered the band's height of popularity in the late 90s, opening track "Can You Take Me" leads you to believe you never stopped listening to the Nor-Cal quartet (and if you're like me, you really haven't). A true anthem, singer Stephen Jenkins' uniquely nasal vocals rise over power chords. Songs like "Sharp Knife", "Water Landing", and "Summer Town" follow suit in true 3EB fashion.

Although every song on the album is incredibly solid, making Ursa Major one of the most consistent records in recent memory, tracks like "Bonfire" (check the spirited "whoa-ohs") stand out as true gems on the album. Lyrically, Jenkins keeps with his witty political observations in "Don't Believe A Word" ("Rap stars brag and shoot each other/and entertain just like no other/we love thugs when they attack and/we love crime all black on black") and lustful love songs like standout "Why Can't You Be" (which finds a woman asking why her lover can't be like the adjustable shower head that gets her off) and "One In Ten" (which follows a man trying to sleep with a lesbian").

You can follow the Pagans and believe summer started sometime in June, you can say summer began with that fling you had in the starry nights of July, but be sure to check this record out, and maybe you'll see why I don't think summer is official until August 18th.



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"Why can't you be the part of me that's missing? Instead of leaving me for some other, said we're perfect for each other..."