House of Large Sizes has been on a slow downhill trajectory since about 1994, when they put out "My Ass-Kicking Life." That record was so powerful and so perfectly realized that, yeah, it would be pretty tough to match it. But I hold out hope, which is precisely why I keep buying HOLS records even though each release sucks progressively more. I figure they're a great band with lots of ideas on innovation and tweaking the power-pop canon in their own perverse way. That's their thing , their central device: making perplexing yet somehow joyful and precocious ditties out of what could easily become lo-grade AC/DC and Cheap Trick idolatry. That girl Barb on bass, she fleshes out the songs perfectly, much the same way Mike Watt used to: melodic yet weird-ass bass lines that function spectacularly as an epoxy for the song. Same with the drummer (or drummers, I should say; There've been three or four, but they've all adhered to the same drumming aesthetic): nearly every percussive act acts as its own artistic statement and benefits the greater good of the song at hand. No filler (and not many fills) and no ego involved. No lead instruments, just instruments taking turns at the forefront. And typically this device works great. But on the last couple of albums, somehow it just fails to amount to much. Maybe it's the production style, with vocal parts sounding like they're coming over the phone, or weird changes that don't work in their context. And on this album, their fifth or sixth record, same deal. The songs aren't terrible, not annoying or offensively dumb. Just kind of there.