Music releases: O.A.R.

ALL SIDES

Atlantic Records

Uncertainty and reassurance make for a busy tag team on “All Sides,” the sixth studio album by O.A.R. It’s a familiar arrangement in modern rock, and Marc Roberge, the band’s singer and songwriter, embraces it. “Hold on,” he urges in the refrain of one relationship-maintenance tune. “I’m on my way back home,” he promises in another one. Then there’s “On My Way,” which closes the album and raises a question: Does Roberge have any new songs about being, you know, right where he’s supposed to be?

If he does, he excluded them, in keeping with standard practice. O.A.R. specializes in a sound that could be described as aspirational; there’s a reason the band was tapped to provide the theme for ABC’s “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.” This album in particular involves a lot of earnest fretting about making things right or just better. That impulse elicits at least one allusion to current events, but even then Roberge manages to preserve an air of yearning.

Because of its college-town origins and reputation for stretching out onstage, O.A.R. has occasionally endured reflexive comparison to the Dave Matthews Band. (Both groups also feature a house saxophonist and an avid tape-trading fan base.) “All Sides” ensures against such a fate, but for the wrong reasons: Matthews and his crew usually keep things more interesting than this. O.A.R. deserves credit (just a bit) for easing up on its trademark faux-reggae, but the alternative surely didn’t have to be so prosaic.

— Nate Chinen,

The New York Times