Goo Goo Dolls Let Love In. Release Date : April 25, 2006. Label: Warner Brothers. Rating: Over with. (Screw points. To each his own!) Do you remember "Name?" Of course you do. Back when I always associated this band with Soul Asylum, when they bridged the gap between underground/alternative/grunge and pop/top forty rock. Then there was "Iris" which showcased a band a lot further geared towards the trendy contemporary 'soft' rock - slick and new and accessible to high schoolers and parents alike. Now, there's a full album of soaring and slick and modern everyrock on this Let Love In album. There's something appealing oddly about it. I don't know what it is - a well-crafted pop composition gets 'pop' for a reason. It fits together like a puzzle - even if it's kinda boring and kinda trite and kinda unoriginal, it's still catchy and memorable. Not memorable in the sense that it stands out so much you couldn't possibly forget it, but rather, that it's accessible enough to recognize and recall lyrics to over and over again. Flutey bits and strings in the title track lend a classicness to it. It's a sad yet inspiring album - uplifting in a there's-a-silver-lining-somewhere-I-swear type of way. Yeah, there's nothing left field about this album at all, nor anything terribly characteristic that makes it too much different from, say, Collective Soul or Train, but all those bands will appeal to a large group of people, and the memories of the band's past alone are enough to keep people like me around to want to listen to it, even while we imagine how nice it would be if our 16 Horsepower albums were playing instead. Who the hell is singing "Listen"? This is definitely not Johnny Rzeznik. Is this Robby Takac singing? No one else is listed anywhere as having anything to do with vocals. They perform a feisty version of "Give A Little Bit" which is kinda cool - sorta adult-contemporary as well, but then again, the original was in the first place! It's got a really clear acoustic guitar in it though, which is a sound I'm enamoured with. Another song with the mystery vocalist comes in later! He sounds a bit like Billy Hopeless from the Black Halos, only if Billy Hopeless totally sold out. "Goo Goo Dolls? more like poo poo dolls." I have no idea where that came from, but I know I didn't come up with it. It makes me giggle though, no matter how true or not-true it might be. Song of choice : Hard to say which I like best. I like the cover best, but that shouldn't really count. Maybe the title track. I like the flute. -Andy Scheffler Elsewhere Goo Goo Dolls website Published : January, 2007.