Live: Secret Samadhi

Overblown or not, overexposed or not, you've got to admit that Live's six-million-selling Throwing Copper was stuffed with explosively visceral anthems. That's always been the Pennsylvania band's great gift: If the self-important imagery got you down, there were always bludgeoning guitars and Ed Kowalczyk's snarling, over-the-top vocals. On the surface, the new Secret Samadhi seems to fall back on those failsafe ingredients; each song has the requisite bluster and melodramatic buildup. But an awful lot of it never really goes anywhere. Maybe Live's formula has become too apparent, but too much of Secret Samadhi seems to lumber and wail without purpose ("Graze," "Rattlesnake") or provide slight variations on Throwing Copper's anthemic formulas ("Lakini's Juice," "Insomnia and the Hole in the Universe"). It may simply be that for all the pre-release secrecy and hype, it's hard to take Kowalczyk seriously when he's bleating choruses with lines like, "This puke stinks like beer and everybody's here," or deadpanning verses like, "Let's go hang out in a bar / It's not too far / We'll take my car." Live's first two albums were filled with big rock moments, but this one doesn't take the formula much further.