Third Eye Blind
Dopamine
Reviewed by: Max Miller
Since music writers tend to be a snarky bunch of assholes, I feel I need to explicitly state up-front that my fondness for Third Eye Blind is completely genuine. I am not affecting an ironic distance when I tell you that “Jumper,” “Semi-Charmed Life,” “Never Let You Go” and other heyday singles are among the most immaculate examples of late-’90s major-label radio-alt rock in existence. A more cynical writer might set up a punchline ragging on Third Eye Blind for being corporate and anodyne, but I come bearing only love and honesty. Thus, as part of that honesty, I also feel I should mention I have never listened to the non-transcendent-singles, a.k.a. “deep cuts,” from seminal albums like Third Eye Blind or Blue. As such, I have no idea whether the greater Third Eye Blind catalog has always been as bland as Dopamine, their fifth full-length.
Oh, sure — all the hallmarks of 1999 are still here; most songs have an optimistic bounce, pounded pianos, beautifully-layered acoustic and electric guitars and harmonized vocals out the wazoo. But in many ways, that’s also the problem. While I commend Third Eye Blind for not attempting some kind of pseudo-EDM crossover that would leave them sounding like a bunch of forty-somethings imitating Avicii or Imagine Dragons, they’ve remained so faithful to their old model as to completely vanish in a blur of interchangeable tunes. Opener and lead single “Everything Is Easy” is completely devoid of the kind of guitar or vocal hooks that made tracks like “Semi-Charmed Life” jump out at listeners a decade-and-change back. This fog of “meh” lingers until the funky licks of the title track and the dance-y fun of “Rites of Passage,” replete with whistling breakdown, offer just about the only glimmer of hope across the whole album’s runtime.
Maybe Third Eye Blind albums have always been like this. Perhaps the tracks that bookended “How’s It Going to Be” and “Jumper” were exactly as dull as “Shipboard Cook” or “Something In You.” But when the peaks were so finely-crafted, it didn’t matter. On the strength of singles alone, Third Eye Blind became a massive band at the tail-end of the era when listeners couldn’t just cherry-pick tracks from the iTunes Store (itself already an outdated concept in the Spotify age). I don’t know who still buys Third Eye Blind albums in 2015. I’m sure there’s a large fanbase that fell in love with the band long ago — folks with far more enthusiasm than my fairweather fandom. These are the people who will buy Dopamine, and perhaps they will even love it just as dearly as Blue or Out of the Vein. But for those of us who only crank up Third Eye Blind when they come on the radio or those too young to be all that familiar with the band in the first place, it feels like Stephan Jenkins is shrugging and saying, “If you do not want to see me again, I would understand.”
Rating: Listenable
