The Fire Theft: The Fire Theft

Sunny Day Real Estate's rocky history encompasses breakups and lineup changes, singer Jeremy Enigk's ambitious solo foray and spiritual rebirth, and a few stylistic hairpin turns, the last of which saw Enigk and company exploring prog-rock on what would turn out to be the band's (presumably) final album, 2000's The Rising Tide. On that occasionally frustrating but underrated swan song, Sunny Day Real Estate's melodramatic pomp recalled a more forceful Yes, a far cry from more direct and accessible classics like Diary and How It Feels To Be Something On. If all that tumultuous backstory isn't confusing enough, now three of Sunny Day Real Estate's four members have reconvened as The Fire Theft and more or less picked up where their old group left off–that is, stingily doling out moments of seemingly divine inspiration on an album that's otherwise difficult to love. On The Fire Theft's self-titled debut, the only outright scorcher ("It's Over") is buried amid a few solid tracks near the back. Fans will have to wade through a mostly unsatisfying assortment of good (the suitably gripping "Summertime"), bad (the alternately plodding and overblown "Chain"), and instrumental ("Waste Time Segue," "Backward Blues," "Rubber Bands") material to get there, which is an inexplicable flaw for guys accustomed to delivering the goods with astonishing regularity. Oddly formless and forgettable, The Fire Theft finds Sunny Day Real Estate diminished in more ways than one.