My Amazon Reviews: OK Go "Of The Blue Colour of The Sky"

The Purple Rain that falls from the Blue Colour of The Sky
3 Out Of 5 Stars 

OK Go took a detour from the majestic power pop of their first two albums and ventured into Minneapolis. At least that is what you may end up thinking when you give a listen to the awkwardly titled "Of The Blue Color Of The Sky." Gone completely are the hyper-energetic songs that garnered comparisons to the likes of Cheap Trick or the perennially underrated Urge Overkill; in their place are Princely sounds as filtered through The Flaming Lips. Die hards may buckle under the change, but I dig it.

First off, the band's knack for a good hook is still in play. Both "All Is Not Lost" and "This Too Shall Pass" are highly memorable pop tunes, even if they don't race along at the kinetic pace of Oh No's "Here It Goes Again." (Make sure to YouTube the single camera/single take marching band version of "This Too Shall Pass" - and the video version of the song would have been a perfect bonus cut.) Then they take on the raspy falsettos of Prince on "End Love" and "White Knuckles." It's a song that makes me wonder if the band hasn't been giving some serious listening to My Morning Jacket's Evil Urges.

Only problem is, if you have the first two OK Go albums, you might be checking your CD to make sure you're still listening to the same band. I started really wishing for a good guitar blast to break through the all the sonic oddities and just kick up the volume a notch or two. I'm all for a band taking artistic control of their sound and changing it up now and then, but "Of The Blue" is a 360 swing from OK Go of the past. I give them a bonus half-star just for the gutsiness of their move and now look forward to where the next album takes them.