Out of the Vein

1	Faster 3:32
2	Blinded 4:22
3	Forget Myself 4:13
4	Danger 3:12
5	Crystal Baller 4:15
6	My Hit and Run 4:22
7	Misfits 4:19
8	Can't Get Away 3:46
9	Wake for Young Souls 4:37
10	Palm Reader 4:54
11	Self Righteous 6:18
12	Company 3:54
13	Good Man 9:24

Barnes & Noble

Things are still semi-charmed in the collective life of this Bay Area quartet, which, thanks to frontman Stephan Jenkins, invariably convinces listeners to take time to stop and smell only the roses that have already fallen to the ground. While the band doesn't veer all that far from the tuneful modern rock sound of their first two albums -- which boasted catchy singles bearing a tinge of darkness -- Out of the Vein does contain a few surprises. For one, 3EB have brought in some offbeat collaborators, such as Kimya Dawson (of costume-popsters Moldy Peaches), who brings a sexual tension to "Self Righteous." Actually, much of the album is colored by affairs of the heart, specifically Jenkins's attempts to work through his split with longtime girlfriend Charlize Theron. He's capable of waxing both wistful, as on the gently tugging "Blinded," and worrisome, as on the gnarled "My Hit and Run," a surreal recounting of a messy motorcycle wreck. There's refreshingly little in the way of studio gimmickry here: Rather than build thick walls of sound, Jenkins and company erect simple guitar-bass-drums structures, all the better to convey the literate but unfussy tenor of tunes like "Wake for Young Souls" and the hopeful hidden track, "Another Life." In all, it's more than just semi-charming. Initial pressings of the album come packaged with a 25-minute DVD containing in-studio and behind-the-scenes footage. David Sprague

All Music Guide

Third Eye Blind don't get much respect from rock critics or fans, but the band do have their own weird kind of integrity. Under the direction of Stephan Jenkins -- who, after the departure of guitarist Kevin Cadogan, is not just the leader, but the major musical force -- they are an unabashedly mainstream post-alternative band, but they have the fervor and righteous belief of U2, only delivered on a smaller scale and with a distinctively American bent. They believe in big-scale music, so they can't help but deliver music that sounds commercial (which in other hands would sound like a sellout), but since they believe it, man, and because Jenkins sings passionately, it doesn't sound that way in their hands. That's especially true of their third album, Out of the Vein, where the bandmembers sound like they have something to prove -- which, in a way, they do. While Jenkins was undeniably the band's jet-setting frontman -- a heartthrob once linked to actress Charlize Theron -- Cadogan was generally acknowledged as the band's secret weapon, crafting the songs and playing the hooks that kept TEB in the charts where other post-grungers fell behind. Without Cadogan, they have to prove that they can still deliver, and the band responds by rocking harder than ever -- a move that coincidentally happens to emphasize the aforementioned inadvertently mainstream integrity, since the harder sound gives this a harder sheen (not a harder edge), even to the handful of mid-tempo songs and ballads. Stephen Thomas Erlewine