Bush - The Science of Things 
Trauma Records

review by Mike Jozic

Everything old is new again, or at least that's what Bush is trying to make you think on their latest album, The Science of Things. Their third studio album since their chart breaking debut, Sixteen Stone, Gavin and the boys have cobbled together twelve tracks that range from grungy-slow, to the blisteringly challenging grungy-fast. While the album is being touted as a completely new direction for the band, there is very little here that makes your ears perk up and say, ìHey, there's something I've never heard before.î 

But I shouldn't sell them completely short, because there are a few stand-out tracks on the album where there is some cleverness seeping through the status quo. ëAltered States' features an oddball chorus of sharp starts and stops, bookended by a catchy melody, and ëSpacetravel', with Rossdale's long-time honey Gwen Stefani on back-up, tries very hard to be out of this world, but falls just barely short of achieving it. The first track released for the single treatment is ëThe Chemicals Between Us', and rightly so, considering it is very likely the catchiest tune on the disc. Sporting a funky new electronic edge, Bush show some serious leanings to some real musical growth with ëChemicals', getting away from the ërock guitar band' stigma that Gavin so desperately wants to shed. 

So while the one thing you won't see on The Science of Things is an all-new, all-different Bush, it remains a curious and relatively entertaining album. If the band continues this
 ëforward' push to try something new, all the evidence would indicate that future albums could really shake your socks off. Until then, I think this one's for completists and
adventurous buyers only. 

OFFICIAL WEBSITE:

http://www.fanasylum.com/bush/