Third Eye Blind: Blue : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Third Eye Blind's follow-up to their tuneful multiplatinum debut, Third Eye Blind, is subtly varied, falling into buried electronic mumbles on "Camouflage," high-stepping through showy Motown rhythms on "Farther" and drifting into dirginess on "Darkness." But mostly Blue offers finely worked-out chunks of serious gun-metal rockcraft that depend on the San Francisco band's restless, edgy electric guitars. Masterminded by singer-guitarist-songwriter-producer Stephan Jenkins, those guitars jump out full force on "Anything," the first single, which sounds like very expensive punk. They trace the messy development of a woman's psyche on "Wounded," worry about parenthood on "10 Days Late" and, on the album's hottest tune, "1000 Julys," just go nuts about sex. Oddly, Blue works best as either background rock or intimate headphone material. It's the sound of Stephan Jenkins thinking, stylishly and hard.