I used to love this album back in 2005. At the time I thought it was a huge return to form. By that I meant in the sense that it seemed more "pure" compared to Crush and Bounce, more actual guitar solos and just felt that it "rocked" more. Now it pretty much bores me. I played it about 6 months ago and it does nothing for me.

The title track absolutely floored me on initial release. It had the now-typical "It's My Life" symptoms but it was much less processed than that and "Everyday" and had more of a classic-rock vibe to it. Back then I thought "THIS is the kind of lead single I wanna hear from this band today!" Now? Somehow now it's lost it's impact, and the shoddy compressed production does it no favours either.

I can see why the album often gets cited as their best post-2000 release as I suppose it is probably more consistent than the others, it's loaded with more rock songs and tones down on the ballads at bit.

Plus I thought the red smirk gimmic was ace!