Used to be that when you threw a Dambuilders disc in the player, you had a pretty good idea of what was gonna come out. Good, old fashioned, catchy pop tunes with little distortion and reverb. Cute stuff. Good stuff. Now, it's a little different.

Against The Stars marks their venture into every other style of music. Oh, sure. The pop factor remains the core of every track, but along the way, it also curves through songs like "Herstory," which cruises full-throttle down Van Halen Memorial Highway, "I Was Wrong" is like a wrong turn down the dead end Bryan Adams lives on, "Seek and Destroy" gives you an overdose of wailing guitars with modern Beatles production and "Lister" reminds me of Cold Storage's soft, snowy technoflakes.

How's all that make the album sound? A little weird. Overall, I still prefer the Old Way. Nice, squeaky-clean, indie rock guitars, more of Joan Wasser's trademark violin and songs that stuck in your head for hours. Against The Stars isn't bad, but it's too produced. It sounds like they spent three years in the studio. I say, "Hey, you wrote a great song, it'll come out fine on the four-track."

-Ryan Schreiber