both human and chemical as if sheer earnestness were the mark of a star, and when the band bears down and speeds up, it's got the bristling force of mid-Nineties college rock. But
Final Straw's grand, intricately layered production covers up for how underdeveloped most of its songs are -- Lightbody sings so prettily that it takes a while to notice that his melodies go nowhere, and his straight-from-the-notebook lyrics ("I'm far too shy to speak to you at school," he croons on "Spitting Games") rarely add up to much.
DOUGLAS WOLK
(RS 945, April 1, 2004)
