A 'Gutterflower' worth picking

Gutterflower
Goo Goo Dolls
Warner Bros. The Goo Goo Dolls have been a busy band for the last couple of years. Since the band's last proper full-length album, Dizzy Up the Girl, in 1998, the boys have put out a retrospective from their 15-year career (What I Learned About Ego, Opinion, Art & Commerce), toured practically nonstop and wrote and recorded their seventh album. Gutterflower is a very similar record to the band's last. Its energetic pop-rock is in prime form and Johnny Rzeznik and Robby Takac's songwriting shows no evidence of the writer's block that Rzeznik suffered prior to the band's breakthrough hit, "Iris." All seems to have fallen into place for the trio that began so many years before as a bunch of punk kids from Buffalo writing drunk songs with titles such as "Beat Me," "Slaughterhouse" and "Don't Beat My Ass (With a Baseball Bat)." But while upon first listen all might seem rosy, underneath lies a fantastic depth of hurt, perhaps drawn from more personal circumstances than the minutiae of touring and greatest hits support. Also in the interim between proper albums, Rzeznik's marriage of six years came to an end. And while "Iris" purported, "You're the closest to heaven that I'll ever be," there are no such sentiments on Gutterflower. Rather, it's an album filled with sadness, failed expectations, anger, hurt and deep, deep sorrow. Perhaps most indicative is the acoustic, mandolin-driven "Sympathy," Rzeznik expressing his apology in lines such as "I wasn't all the things I tried to make-believe I was" and "All the talk and all the lies were all the empty things disguised as me." Then there's the up-tempo "It's Over," with the lament, "I can't stand without you and I won't find the answers when you're gone," and the bitter resentment of the testosterone rocker "What Do You Need?" sung through clenched teeth, "The truth is so complicated now/You feel so free to say 'You're wrong.'" What all these sentiments come together to create is probably the most emotionally charged Goo Goo Dolls album since the band's low-rent beginnings. Really, the only ease comes from the peppering of songs written by Takac, whose lighthearted songwriting sense functions to provide some much-needed relief. Ultimately, it adds up to a terrific rock and roll album that mixes the tough with the tender while never letting go of a melody, even if it's sprung from hurt. One can't help but wonder how much of Gutterflower comes directly from Rzeznik's personal tragedy, but whatever the case we feel his pain. We hope he feels better, but until then we'll enjoy the byproduct.