Alibis & Other Lies

Veteran Australian rock act Grinspoon change things up a bit on their fifth album, downshifting into a mainstream hard rock sound from the more idiosyncratic stoner metal of their earlier days. A cowbell-driven riff-rocker like "Choirboy" -- complete with the cringe-inducing chorus "I was a first-stall choirboy/Now here I am a rock and roll destroyer" -- is so painfully naff that the listener has to hope that it's a jokey put-on along the lines of the Darkness, but there's little evidence of intentional levity on Alibis & Other Lies, which leads one to suspect that this sudden interest in '70s FM rock and '80s hair metal is entirely serious. That wouldn't be so bad if Grinspoon were doing top-shelf work in the style, but these 12 songs are laden with lyrical and musical clichés. Witness the semi-orchestral power ballad "Minute by Minute," which screams out for a video featuring black-and-white shots of the bandmembers -- in cowboy hats -- looking wistfully out the windows of a tour van and striding in slow motion through the bowels of a hockey arena. Even the album cover looks like it was rescued from the art department's reject files circa 1989. Whether this is a single-album aberration or Grinspoon have decided that the time is right to kickstart The Great Bon Jovi Revival of 2008, Alibis & Other Lies is a peculiar side trip for a band who used to have more in common with the musical likes of Rage Against the Machine.