The Days Are Better, the Nights Are Still so Lonely

Back in 1998, it was safe to say that Train were headed towards One Hit Wonder land with their very catchy, if not somewhat odd, Meet Virginia. But just around the time everyone forgot about them, they surfaced three years later with what could be one of the best songs this decade, Drops of Jupiter and landed at number two of my Best of 2001 list. That song along warranted the band to release a couple more albums.

After the somewhat disappointing 2003 release of My Private Nation, the band is back with the stronger effort of For Me, It's You. The album starts off with All I Ever Wanted a song about realizing maybe a little too late what you want and is highlighted by the line “You gave me everything I ever wanted except for you.” The album also features the band’s best song since Drops of Jupiter in Cab another piano driven song with a backing orchestra but where Drops captures that summer feel, Cab does a great job catching the essences of being in New York City in the dead of winter.

Sadly Train goes back into bland rock radio clichés for most of the rest of the album. “Skyscraper, you define the skyline,” could be one of the most boring lines ever written and shows the band should stick with the more inane lyrics featured in Meet Virginia or Drops of Jupiter. Pat Monahan’s amazing voice is able to salvage some of the songs from going into Nickelback type triteness and the additions of Bandon Bush on keyboards and Johnny Colt of The Black Crowes on bass help re-energize the band somewhat, but there is still a few songs that should have never made the cut.

Stuck in the middle of the routine rock songs is the funky Shelter Me. Also stick around for the title track that is stuck at the end of the album. The romantic song, with lines like, “Everybody got something that they want to sing about, laugh about, cry about, it's true, for me it's you,” is a jazzy song that Monahan’s voice shines on. Maybe in another album or two, Train will have compiled enough great songs to put together must own “Best Of” package.

Song to Download - Cab

For You it's Me gets a on my Terror Alert Scale.