Our Lady Peace — Burn Burn

Burn Burn

Coalition/Sony

Kate Harper (CHARTattack)

07/21/2009 3:33pm

Our Lady Peace seemed inescapable in 1997 around the time of Clumsy. Canadian kids and MuchMusic turned them into stars on the back of singles like "Superman's Dead" and the album's title track. Happiness... Is Not A Fish That You Can Catch further solidified their stardom when it came out two years later. 

But two years after that, Our Lady Peace seemed to fall off with 2001's Spiritual Machines and tumbled even further with 2002's Gravity and 2005's Healthy In Paranoid Times. Those were full of bloated, humourless tunes that were less "alternative" and more the sort of mainstream rock that paved the way for the Nickelback charts takeover. (Sure, Pearl Jam deserve the alpha blame in this, but Our Lady Peace have something to do with it as well.)

Four years after their last album, Our Lady Peace have returned with Burn Burn. Unfortunately, it adds nothing new to the mix, and it fails miserably when it tries.

First single and leadoff track "All You Did Was Save My Life" may be Our Lady Peace's most promising song in years. But it's soon destroyed by the presence of the absolutely terrible "Monkey Brains," which begins as thumping radio rock and turns into a godawful early '90s grungy race.

Elsewhere, Our Lady Peace spend Burn Burn aping Coldplay and U2. "Never Get Over You" and "The End Is Where We Being" sound particularly like Chris Martin and company. Interestingly, Raine Maida's yowl sounds a bit more restrained these days and much more like Martin, and it's probably telling that Maida produced this album himself. Most of the tracks towards the end of the disc show Steve Mazur demonstrating the kind of Edge-influenced guitar lines Jonny Buckland uses.

Most of Burn Burn's tracks fade into the background, and those that stand out do so not because of their quality, but because they represent just how confused these former chart toppers have become. Even if you're a huge fan, you'd be wise to stick with your copy of Clumsy. 

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