If he had less ambition and a lower tolerance for failure, Third Eye Blind frontman Stephan Jenkins could be sipping Mai Tais with Mark McGrath on the deck of a ’90s rock cruise right now, enjoying a life of royalty checks and low expectations. Instead, he’s carried on as if any year might be the one where his group finally reclaims its former glory. Everything he does is a long-shot bid for relevance: He covers Bon Iver, records bold political statements, and generally does the last thing we ask from the second-tier figures of alt-rock’s yesteryear: He tries.
Third Eye Blind’s closest corollary is probably Weezer, another band with an extremely online frontman who never lost his thirst for the charts. They haven’t experienced anything like Weezer’s continued success, but they share a refusal to accept middle age as a commercial expiration date.
In pop-punk and emo circles, Third Eye Blind’s 1997 self-titled debut is treated with an affection reserved for Weezer’s Blue Album and the Violent Femmes’ debut—nervy, warts-and-all depictions of adolescent alienation. Jenkins is in his mid-50s now, but he hasn’t outgrown that angst, and he still sings in a raw, post-pubescent yelp. His perennial youthfulness remains his most endearing quality, and on the band’s sixth album Screamer, Jenkins Peter Pans his way through a record so improbably infectious that you almost begin to wonder if he might score that late-career radio hit after all.
He brings along some younger recruits to boost his chances. Sleigh Bells’ Alexis Krauss injects homecoming-rally pep into the record’s shouty title track, while Poliça’s Ryan Olson punches up the piano-flushed “Got So High” and the lighter-waving “Who Am I.” Billy Corgan is also credited as the album’s “musical consigliere,” though it’s unclear what precisely he contributed to the record beyond some pre-release buzz. The album’s open-door policy helps keep things fresh, and the band sounds more comfortable in their skin than they have since the ’90s. “Turn Me On” and “Tropic Scorpio” are buoyant and bombastic, tinged with EDM-adjacent production that plays off of contemporary Top 40 without pandering to it.
Although he’s laying it on less thick than usual, Jenkins’ swaggering vocals remain an acquired taste. He can still be an unrepentantly clumsy lyricist, especially when he breaks out his old sing-rap on “Walk Like Kings.” But overall, Screamer is better than a sixth Third Eye Blind album ever needed to be. It’s unlikely to be the full comeback Jenkins is gunning for, but if Third Eye Blind never score another hit, it won’t be for lack of scratching and clawing.
Buy: Rough Trade
