I like to think of myself as a rather wise and cautious music buyer. You see, I'm one of those guys who likes to listen to pretty much everything he can before he buys it. But I must confess that every now and then, even I can get duped into a foolhardy impulse buy.

Now this particular impulse buy... well, it's taken me a good half a year to get around actually admitting to all of you readers that I made a mistake on this one. You see, as much as the San Francisco band Train got bad press for being a one-hit wonder with the ubiquitous title track from their previous album Drops of Jupiter, I found that I really loved that song. I took a chance on that record about three years ago, and thankfully, I didn't regret it. While it was far from fascinating, I enjoyed the band's slightly countrified mellow-rock approach. I found that I could connect with a lot of the lyrics, and that the songs began to sink in over time in their own subtle ways. That's not a bad thing for a more middle-of-the-road pop/rock album to do. So when I stumbled across their latest, My Private Nation, in a used CD store with a going price of about $9, I snapped it up. (Keep in mind that this came after a few failed attempts to preview it by way of KaZaa, which had become so overpopulated with fake downloads by that point that it was pretty much worthless.) I had heard good things about the album, so despite the fact that I hadn't been all that excited about lead single "Calling All Angels", I figured there had to be some hidden gems that would make the album worthwhile. After all, it was the same guys writing the songs, right?

Yeah, I guess. Honestly, I couldn't tell you what the heck happened here, other than to make the obvious analogy that this Train got majorly derailed. I suppose I can handle a pop/rock album on which the songs are mostly mid-tempo and relatively inconspicuous. But the tendency away from acoustic guitars makes the sound mush together on a lot of numbers that are apparently supposed to sound big and grandiose. The band just feels flattened on this release, and sure, there might be strings or bells or some other element of ear candy giving a lot of them a fuller background, but that does little to cover up the fact that outside of the singles released thus far (which are at least passable), most of these songs are boring. Every now and then, the monotony is broken up by a laughable lyric, or an incredibly annoying vocal delivery. It's still Pat Monahan at the mic, and I liked him on Drops of Jupiter but now it seems he's reverted to squeaking and slurring his way through a set of truly unremarkable lyrics, some of which make the irritating "Meet Virginia" sound inviting in comparison. Yeah, I never liked that song. I should've known better than to elevate Train to "trusted artist" status after one decent album, shouldn't I?

I suppose it's not a complete wash, though. I may have no desire to listen to the album ever again when I'm done with this review, but I'll admit that Train has managed to push their boundaries and come up with a few songs that are at least nominally interesting, and maybe a lyric here and there that shows potential. Either that, or I was just projecting my own semi-related experience onto Drops of Jupiter and the band was really not that great all along. In any event, I'll do my best to get through this one and pick out the good points, as few as there may be, without succumbing to the urge to shoot myself about halfway through.

Wish me luck.

Calling All Angels
When children have to play inside so they don't disappear
And private eyes solve marriage lies, 'cause we don't talk for years...
As I mentioned above, I was only marginally excited about this album's hit single. Some people are saying it's even better than "Drops of Jupiter" It certainly seems to want to carry on that song's legacy with its fanciful melody and softly floating tempo, and it's probably the most socially conscious Train song I've heard thus far, so I guess that's been striking a chord with a lot of folks. I can't fault Train for that. The main problem that I have here is that it's not a well-constructed song. Maybe I just hear too many songs that implore the heavens and make vague allusions to the world's troubles (I've spent most of the past ten years listening to Christian rock, after all), but I guess I'm not feeling Pat's plight enough to want to join in on his simple chorus of "I am calling all angels, I am calling all you angels." That and an oft-repeated phrase of "I won't give up, if you don't up" that flatly refuses to change its melody as the chords change underneath it seem to indicate that a lack of truly powerful lines necessitated repeating some of the lyrics that had already been penned in order to complete the song. Pat finally begins to hit home during the bridge when he runs through a few quick lines on marital problems and people hiding and pretending everything's OK, but at that point, the specificity is too little, too late. Then we get a weird bridge of nothing but synth and drums leading back into the chorus that just feels grafted into the song for no particular reason. I'm all for trying new and unexpected things, but man, you have to make it interesting to listen to if you're going to do stuff like that.

All American Girl
Now I never had a supernatural feelin'
Not to mention a sexual healin'
But every now and then I get to the kneelin'
To thank him for it all...
The second track, a bouncy, fuzz-guitar dominated pop song, is actually a surprising change for Train. Heck, this was my favorite song on the album until I actually listened to it. Take the fun, mildly upbeat feeling of a song like "She's on Fire", syncopate the tempo and speed it up a bit, and make the girl in question a little more dysfunctional, and you'll have this song. Train seems to have this fetish for girls with strange, quirky habits, and while Pat's description of this particular young lady who thinks she's better than everyone else sounds like a rip-roaring good time at first, it quickly falls apart when you realize that the song is so preoccupied with its own rhymes that it doesn't really have much to say. Alright, so she doesn't shave her legs when she's lazy. And she's the Neiman Marcus of the mall. And you resent her, but you'd like to use her one more time. (How nice of you.) Let's forget about that - the real issue at hand is, how in the hell do you think you're gonna get away with rhyming "lazy" and "Patrick Swayze" with "mayonnaisey"? Once you start paying attention, the song is positively embarrassing, and that cancels out any fun spirit that the music might create.

When I Look to the Sky
And in the midst of sailing ships
We sink our lips into the ones we love
That have to say goodbye...
Well, here's a pretty little inoffensive ballad about looking up into the heavens and finding hope in some unspecified thing or person. Woohoo, let's make it a radio single! Alright, I suppose I shouldn't be so sarcastic when this is actually a decent song. It's a fairly effective piano-driven song that kicks in with a decent "wall of sound" thanks to some Christmas-like bells that make it shimmer with joy. The lyrics are actually mildly interesting, even if they seem to be employing triple rhymes just for the sake of proving they can: "When it rains, it pours, and opens doors, and floods the floors" is one such example. The chorus doesn't fare much better - you can pretty much predict the sentiment from the title. He looks at the sky, and somehow that makes him remember the lover he's separated from. Probably the best thing about the song is when the bridge leads back into the chorus and the song pulls off a slick key change, leaving Pat to sing an altered line of the chorus as the band temporarily drops away behind him, shifting back into the old key when the real chorus arrives again. And then the bells take the song home at the end. Understandably, this made for a good wintertime-type single, but aside from a nice melody and a pretty good production job, I can't say that it's brilliant or anything.

Save the Day
But she's cool like a soda can sittin' on ice
Always orders sushi, only eats the rice
Talks about J-Lo like they're best of friends
I think she loves me, but it all depends...
Hope you enjoyed the highlights - from here out it's pretty rough going. Seemingly having left their Southern rock roots behind (if they ever had such things in the first place), this track lays down a subtle, relaxed groove that ends up being Train's take on white-boy hip-hop. Seriously, Pat can't seem to make up his mind whether he wants to rap or sing, so he mostly ends up squeaking his way through the song in a very annoying high-pitched tone. I can handle this sort of thing from say, Jason Mraz, but that's because the guy doesn't grate on my ears and his lyrics tend to amuse me. Train, on the other hand, is once again stricken with "quirky girl syndrome", and they're basically counting on aimless references to cultural flotsam and jetsam to pull them through this awful wreck of a song. I'm sorry, but Courtney Love is not "street smart", "karaoke" and "hokey pokey" are a lame excuse for a rhyme and have nothing to do with anything, and you most certainly do not have "The L.A. stylie with the New York trim". And I do not want to hear about how low you wear your pants! Keep it to yourself, man! There is a chorus here, assuming anyone cares - it's a more traditional Train chorus with an actual sung melody and stupid lyrics ("I just want to be your man, and I'll be super maybe"), but the band pulls off a really awkward key change to get to it, and an awkward key change to get back where they started, so it basically sounds like they wrote two incomplete songs and meshed them together when they realized they were running out of studio time.

My Private Nation
Why you gonna step on shoes
When you don't know whose been in 'em
Have you ever been more than a bump
On a rock that likes to roll...
It's fitting that, just like on the last album, the title track doesn't sound like anything else here. Amazingly, the band has put together a more straightforward rock track with some actual meat to it. Musically speaking, I'm really feeling this one. It's nothing amazing, but I'll take meat-and-potatoes over the unsuccessful ballads and forced hybrids we've heard so far. The song begins with Pat trying to sound like a punk as he tells off some kid who's apparently criticizing him for not being hip or something. It's fine to take a rebuttal shot back at someone like that, but you kind of have to do it intelligently if you're going to do it at all, and instead Pat reverts back to some more gibberish about buses and dreams and so forth, and I stop caring by the time the second chorus arrives. Once again, a promising song ends up being compromised by amateurish, misplaced rhymes such as "Use your eyes, it's all you got 'til you die."

Get to Me
Maybe you could pollinate over the Golden Gate
Take a left hand turn at the corner of Haight
And then a sharp right at the first street light
And get yourself on a motor bike...
Now if you want to lay down a groove, this ain't a bad way to do it. Bass player Charlie Colin gets a little bit of time in the spotlight here as he and drummer Scott Underwood create a laid-back feel for what should be a fun, lighthearted love song. I suppose that it is, but unfortunately the song doesn't end up saying a whole lot other than, "Hey, I miss you. Get over here." If not for a few specific references to San Francisco geography, this song could probably be mistaken for a Kindergarten song that teaches kids about methods of travel, both realistic and fanciful. I mean, do you expect me to take a song seriously that tells someone to "Take a roller coaster that comes in sideways" and to "Come on, take a ride on the back of a butterfly"? The only memorable moment, other than the groove that tickles the ears if one can tune out the lyrics, is the bridge, which features some Gospel-like vocals repeating "Shine, shine, shine". Of course this comes after the brilliant revelation that this person is "Above me like a star". Give me a freaking break.

Counting Airplanes
I don't spend my time with anyone
Who doesn't think I'm wonderful
Or somewhat cash refundable at times...
I'm going to retitle this one "Ode to a Quirky Girl, Vol. 3", okay? It's the least that I can do, since a clunky chorus about counting airplanes does little to get this song off the ground or to offer any additional insight into a relationship between two wacky people. "Clunky" is actually a good way to describe this entire song, from the pounding piano at the beginning of it to the thoroughly boring drums keeping a lagging tempo throughout the whole thing, to the too-much-information lyrics that once again tell us about a girl who doesn't shave her legs. (This is used as a rhyme for a guy who doesn't put ketchup on his eggs, by the way.) Sure, I get the point, he's weird, she's weird, and he doesn't want people telling him they have to be normal to find each other attractive. The problem isn't the message - it's just that Train is bad with the details. They seem to think that simply pointing out random facts is enough to make a song clever and quirky, but unless you have the skill for subtle observation that allows you to actually hint at what these things might mean (like the Barenaked Ladies do, for example), then you're better off leaving this sort of subject matter alone. This is by far the worst song on the CD, and trust me, that's saying a lot.

Following Rita
He wrestled with his thoughts out loud
About two girls that he had left behind
And said for forty five dollars
He could help me on my way and get rich too...
Hope you like lifeless mid-tempo drumming, because that's what propels the album from here on out. Following "Counting Airplanes" are three more songs that seem determined to blend in as much as they can - or at least until Pat brings the lyrics front and center. In this case, the lyrics at least manage to not be terrible - they take on more of a folk-storyteller approach, which is welcome, and the subtle but effective guitar chord progression that anchors the chorus is somewhat pleasing to these ears - it gives the song a little more color. Basically, Pat's playing the role of a guy on the road hunting down a high school sweetheart. It would probably be a pretty good story if it were fleshed out a little more - I guess the song is really more about the trip than the girl. Unless it's intended to be tied to any of the songs around it (which is doubtful), I'm not getting much of a satisfying story here.

Your Every Color
You're coffee brown and bubble gum pink
And oh I think the shade of you is on the brink
Of changing all the ways I see the world...
At this point, Pat is starting to sound just plain tired. He croaks out a lot of the lyrics to this leaden song in a lower register, slurring words together and sounding just plain bored. As far as lyrical devices for love songs go, the premise here isn't too bad - he's comparing a girl to all sorts of different colors and telling her how she resembles them all. The lyrics are fairly sweet if taken on their own, even if they have moments where they stumble as badly as your average lovesick junior-high poetry. The chorus seems to want to be whimsical and fun with its sweet calls of "Oooh, I love your every color", but at such a tempo, it's hardly as engaging as it was probably intended to be.

Lincoln Avenue
Well I guess this is where I left my life
And all its operations
And I know that I will never get this twice
With all negotiations...
Changing things up ever so slightly, we get another piano-led clunker instead of a guitar-driven one this time. Oh joy! Now, I remember another reviewer describing this song in very interesting visual terms before I ever got the chance to hear it for myself, and I guess I can't blame Train for the perceptions of others, but I'm not hearing anything other than Train's usual dull attempt at half-hearted whimsy in the piano melody here. (I guess different melodies just grab different people.) Once again, it's too slow and surrounded by too much similar stuff. It wants to be one of those songs that evokes memories of a place, since Pat is reminiscing on a girl he knew when he lived on the titular street and thinking, "This is where I left my life", but in the end it's just more pointless whining about not being over somebody. There's actually an electric guitar solo in the mix at one point, which I guess is a welcome change, but it's a fairly inert, Clear Channel-friendly bit of instrumentation, which explains why I completely forgot it was there until I listened to the album again today.

I'm About to Come Alive
No one thought I was good enough for you, except for you
Don't let them be right after all that we've been through...
Would you believe it? At long last, a lyric pops out of the woodwork that actually manages to hold my interest for a change. This final song is the story of a sad, estranged couple, told over a soft bed of brushed drums and quietly picked acoustic guitar, giving the song a soft but welcoming flow that somewhat resembles the closing "Mississippi" from the last album, minus the trumpet. For the first time, I feel like a coherent story is being told in a compelling way, without resorting to the usual witticisms that have only gotten in the way on so many of the other songs. Basically, the guy overhears his wife on the phone talking about their loveless marriage to a friend, and wondering if she should take off and leave him to fend for himself with the baby. It's a sad number, to be sure, but the chorus reflects some genuine hope as Pat pleads with her, "Don't give up on me, I'm about to come alive." It resonates with me for some reason, perhaps because it effectively communicates that couples fall on hard times and they have to choose to love each other at times when they're not feeling it. While the music still isn't terribly exciting, the song comes as a bit of a relief and a window into the things Train used to be good at.

Phew. I made it. It was tough going, because Train seems to have failed to marry any instance of enjoyable music to any of the better lyrics on this project. Because of that, the sometimes grating vocal delivery, and the overall lack of interesting things that jump out at me, I'm going to have to say that I can't find a good enough reason to offer Train a mercy two-star rating. So one star it is. One and a half, I suppose, if I could do such a thing, for the few tolerable songs that I managed to find. My Private Nation isn't a complete failure - perhaps it's more like a D minus when I could have been harsh and slapped them with an F.

I can't say whether I'll bother to lend Train's fourth album an ear, if they even last that long. Perhaps enough people like this sort of stuff that they'll buy into it and the band will stay afloat. I guess I can fathom the lyrics and music jiving more easily with some other people - it's not like Train has shown a complete lack of personality here. But as far as I'm concerned, the personality that they have shown isn't a terribly remarkable one. Honestly, I've got better bands to waste my time and money on, and so do you.

ALBUM WORTH:
Calling All Angels $1
All American Girl $1
When I Look to the Sky $1.50
Save the Day -$.50
My Private Nation $.50
Get to Me $0
Counting Airplanes -$.50
Following Rita $0
Your Every Color $0
Lincoln Avenue $0
I'm About to Come Alive $1
TOTAL: $4

CONCLUSION: Skip this one. Buy a single or hit iTunes if you really must get one of the songs you've heard on the radio.

Band Members:
Pat Monahan: Vocals, percussion
Jimmy Stafford: Guitars, mandolin, background vocals
Charlie Colin: Bass, guitars, background vocals
Scott Underwood: Drums, keyboards, piano, programming
Rob Hotchkiss: Guitars, piano, bass, background vocals (no longer with the band)

Website: http://www.trainline.com

Recommended: No