Let Love In

1	Stay with You 3:56
2	Let Love In 5:01
3	Feel the Silence 3:50
4	Better Days 3:35
5	Without You Here 3:49
6	Listen 3:10
7	Give a Little Bit 3:36
8	Can't Let It Go 3:53
9	We'll Be Here (When You're Gone) 3:29
10	Strange Love 3:35
11	Become 4:08

Barnes & Noble

Like that vintage commercial featuring a couple guys ready to duke it out after one's chocolate ended up in the other's peanut butter -- the result being that the new concoction was pretty doggone tasty after all -- these Buffalo boys have all but perfected splicing spun-sugar pop and considerably tangier heartland rock. Much as they did on Dizzy Up the Girl, the Goos strike a fine balance between those two approaches on Let Love In, ensuring that fans who have a strong preference for one or the other will come away satiated. The lilting title track is one of several that allow Johnny Rzeznik to demonstrate his ability to tug at the heartstrings -- a skill that's amplified by the judicious use of real strings (and orchestrations) that buoy the tune's mood. More than on past efforts, however, Rzeznik seems to feel like he's on the losing end of the battle of the sexes -- songs like "When You're Gone" and "Without You Here" have a contemplative feel, one that resonates like the echo of footsteps in an otherwise empty house. That ambience is tempered by the passel of more up-tempo tracks. While nothing really approaches the in-your-face attitude the Goos flaunted in the late '80s and early '90s, songs like the brassy opener, "Stay With You," and "Feel the Silence" prove they're still capable of causing a ruckus when the need arises. David Sprague

All Music Guide

Actually, the title of the Goo Goo Dolls' eighth album can be taken somewhat literally: Let Love In is a welcoming collection of songs that eschews some of the darker currents roiling under the surface of their previous effort, 2002's Gutterflower. Not that Gutterflower sounded bleak -- it was clean and glossy, so much so that it would be easy to listen to it once and assume that there wasn't much there. Such assumptions also come to mind after the first listen for 2006's Let Love In, but unlike its predecessor, there isn't much to dig into here; what you hear upon that first listen is exactly what you get. And this is a record that has very little connection to the ramshackle rock band the Goo Goo Dolls were at the beginning of their career, and there's also only a thin thread connecting this to even their commercial breakthrough of A Boy Named Goo in the alt-rock salad days of 1995. Thanks in no small part to their new producer, Glen Ballard -- who made his name as the man behind Alanis Morissette's Jagged Little Pill and then went on to sand down the rough edges of Aerosmith, Live, and the Dave Matthews Band, and performs the same task here -- this is the sound of a mainstream adult rock band, a band that knows their craft and does little to push the boundaries of that craft. Certainly, they do little to break convention here, either, relying on ballads and midtempo tunes that feel like ballads for the bulk of the record -- and when they do decide to rock (usually on a Robby Takac number), it's almost as if they made a conscious effort to turn the volume down on their amps before they started to play. It's easy listening music for a generation raised on rock, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Frontman Johnny Rzeznik remains a solid journeyman rocker, as both a writer and singer, and he crafts songs that are likeable and sturdier than those of such peers as Rob Thomas, even if his tunes aren't all that memorable this time around, particularly when they're dressed in an immaculate production like this, where every track is produced so smoothly it all blends together. But even that certain element of repetition makes Let Love In work as pleasant background music -- which may sound like damning with faint praise, particularly since there would have been a time when the Goo Goo Dolls would never have thought of themselves as being merely pleasant, but it just means the album works on its own (albeit limited and modest) terms. Stephen Thomas Erlewine