(3-track single/ 2000)
Interestingly, Third Eye Blind pack-leader/ singer Stephan Jenkins has more-recently collaborated on hip-hoppers Run DMC�s �Rock Show,� but as TEB frontman he�s more used to singing about love in a softer, melodically rockier format. �Never Let You Go,� from their �Blue� LP, is tightly riff-based & reminds of Ruby Cruiser�s casually swaggering �Everything Is Cool.� Sunny and fresh, Third Eye appeal to growing-up flattery that was once showered by teenage girls onto the likes of Hanson, and it�s a catchy, upfront-enough track to get ready for a night tripping over stuck-up tiles to: great fun, but overly-disposable and throwaway. Affection-wise Jenkins sings, �If there�s a reason, it�s lost on me,� doe-eyed and soft-voiced, these 4 lads slickly good-looking (i.e., benefitting from well-styled hair, fake tans and soberingly serious expressions) and even better-sounding rockers for knicker-bocker creaming girls - the type of girls who crumple into a fiddly-foodling-mess at mere sight of a rock star with a heart� �All I know is it�s wrong,� he says, �I�ll never let you go!� Track 2�s the �LP Version� of �Never Let You Go,� and it�s a head-loggering �Spot the Difference� contest � both Track 1�s �Radio Version� and this are, coincidentally, even on for the same length of time: 3 mins 57 sex, for those Stats. Freaks craving action! I think we�ve been duped, and that track 2 is in fact track 1 all over again. If track 3 had been some half-rate remix, that would have sealed their reputation as heartless con-men, but �Anything� is the highlight and worth the wait, passionately exploding into a bustling riot of pushy hell-for-leather lust, akin to Bush�s melodic staying power, jostling with positively youth-trained energy as if Feeder and Ash are �soo last century.� (As if). On it�s own narrow-minded terms, it�s fucking excellent. (STEVE RUDD)