Suburban Rock 'n' Roll

by Tim DiGravinaAfter three years of self-imposed studio exile, the wacky fellows of Space jumped back into the fold in 2004 to release the catchy and bombastic Suburban Rock 'n' Roll. With their days topping the charts increasingly hard to discern in the rearview mirror, Suburban Rock 'n' Roll sees the band in a holding pattern, losing more than a bit of their wicked edge and simply doling out bubbly cacophonous tracks that will likely satiate longtime stragglers but most likely not win over newcomers. The chief problem is an overall sense of sameness and a chunky production veneer. Every song seems to strive for great heights and to tickle one's funny bone, but nothing even remotely adheres to one's cranium like past glories "Female of the Species," "Neighbourhood," "Avenging Angels," or even "The Ballad of Tom Jones." Whether their adventurous sense went out the door with guitarist Jamie Murphy or whether these 11 songs were rushed through the songwriting process, either something is missing or the bandmembers are just too far removed from the zeitgeist of the 2000s. Diehards will probably argue otherwise, but the sense of magic and discovery that informed the band's previous albums is missing. While virtually every song on the album would fit nicely alongside tracks on Spiders or Tin Planet, the fact remains that the album lacks the killer standouts that marked those earlier albums. Suburban Rock 'n' Roll is charming enough and even quite lovable in medium-sized doses, but one expects more from Space than an album of above-average and agreeably raucous tunes. For a band that once supplied highly addictive and grandiose gestures, they seem too content here to merely wink and pose.