ontrary to the dastardly and incorrect claims of the band selling out with Gravity, Our Lady Peace haven’t foresworn the music they had almost perfected. Pop Rock, like any other genre, is not monolithic and camps do spring up when closely surveyed. Old fans suggest that up through Spiritual Machines OLP had operated in a far more distinct arena (post-Grunge, alt-pop), but that either speaks to their naïveté or their acrimony towards the band’s movement to simpler terrain. The question isn’t why OLP elected to change directions to the point that their longtime guitarist and founder Mike Turner left or why they sought Bob Rock to tender their vision, but how successful they were in their decision.

Nonetheless those changes have adversely affected the band’s output thus far, sacrificing their sapient chemistry for brusque flair. OLP’s chosen genre of expression previously belied their motley histories and unique traits and, crucially, kept their music buoyant for five albums. Many forget that Jeremy Taggert was weaned on jazz aesthetics—explaining his drum style on Happiness … tracks like “Stealing Babies”—or that Raine Maida had more than just an interesting falsetto, he also managed to punctuate that range by punctuating the passaggios. Mike Turner and Duncan Coutts were remarkable for actually playing as necessary parts, Coutts often being Turner’s low rumbling counterpoint.

I guess, then, it’s no surprise that transference of these attributes never occurred with Gravity, but Healthy in Paranoid Times at least reverts to a bit of that history. You hear it on opener “Angels/Losing/Sleep” where Taggert’s kick drum and Coutts form a steady, low, and deep undercurrent for Steve Mazur’s buzz saw notes, leaving each instrument distinct and leading to a chorus that expands but doesn’t explode into the boring hard rock conflagration of Gravity. This was the band’s signature when Mike Turner was still a member because he managed to use the guitar as muscle but not to manipulate the rest. You hear it again on “Apology” and the refrain of “Wipe That Smile Off Your Face,” both creating slow, considered tension rather than cudgeling force.

But those are still flights of fancy and the overall sound produced this time around still falls closer to a hard rock soundscape. Though he quit and was even fired during the recording session, Bob Rock still felt abecedarian structures would be appropriate, resulting in an album that’s once again awash in simplicity. “Where Are You?,” which takes my vote as the band’s worst single of their career, sees them using a faster tempo that tries to cash in on a pop-punk zeitgeist except with half the verve. It’s a grand misstep full of clumsy guitars and a confused direction. “Boy” sees Mazur attempt the spacey, echoing guitar work of U2’s The Edge but only comes up with a spacey, echoing doppelganger. The rest is typical Bob Rock fare: developed without panoptic consideration and, worse yet, set to be part of the Wal-Mart rock saturating the radio.

Perhaps the most infelicitous part about the work is Maida’s lyrics. From Naveed through Happiness Is …, they’ve always been described as cryptic and a point of frustration for the listeners. That disagreeable feature was naturally remedied on Spiritual Machines where Maida’s roaming ideas and words were fixed through a concept album, resulting in some of his most lucid but complicated lyrics to date. Healthy in Paranoid Times is somewhat of a concept album as well, if only because the lyrics this time come from a conscientious, world-weary individual. His experiences with the War Child charity have led to a fixed “global” lyrical position, but that fixation denies precisely any new implications or novel ideas. They end up being the most negligible facet of the album, a reality atypical of his prior output.

It’s somewhat enticing to forfeit critical examination of anything OLP puts out henceforth, especially for those who claim to be former fans, but I don’t subscribe to that sort of indolence. It’s not that the band’s new form can’t be good (isn’t that what people said about Dave Fridmann producing Sleater-Kinney and Low?), but that they haven’t modified their strengths to suit their desired change. Their vision wasn’t the problem; it’s the manner they chose to realize it.