After a considerable length of time since the hit-filled "Monkey Business" stormed the charts in mid-2005 The Black Eyed Peas are back with their ambitious new record "The E.N.D."
Smash lead single "Boom Boom Pow," which has spent nine weeks and counting atop the Billboard Hot 100, is surprisingly the group's first single to reach #1. And why shouldn't it be? It aims for something fresh and original and succeeds. Interesting verses intertwine with the chorus in restrained but relentlessly hooky, choppy melodic fashion. Fergie and will.i.am sound like they are having the time of their lives. The latter's production skills just short of wizard-like.
There are many more hits here, including "Rock That Body," which will grab the attention of DJs and club-goers worldwide, and the gorgeous, rollicking "Meet Me Halfway," an upbeat ballad where Fergie digs desperately with emotion with the tenacity of a soap opera queen. "I Gotta Feeling" is an easy, breezy summer hit in the making with Fergie's evocative vocal leading the way. The lyrics and melody are surprisingly simplistic, but in this case less is more.
This stuff is highly individual yet also retro-friendly with 80's-inspired synths and loose, spaced-out vocal effects, and the majority of the tracks live up to the album's full title - "The Energy Never Ends" - although some like "Party All the Time" and "Showdown" fail to live up to the standard set by some that appear earlier. "Imma Be" and "Missing You" fall short with limp melodies and lack solid hooks, but other filler tracks such as the chorus-deprived "Alive" are still listenable.
"Electric City" is an intriguing if unmelodic experiment in snazzy, tech-savvy wordplay ("Hit `em with the sound/Shoot `em with the bass") and "Now Generation" both criticizes and celebrates the knee-jerk lack of patience that characterizes the information generation. will.i.am name-drops Google, Wikipedia and Facebook as Fergie yells "I want it now!" "One Tribe" is a colorful track with a fluid, downbeat, international vibe as will.i.am waxes on the strength of diversity but calls for unity, not division. The track is a fine listen and escapes sounding like a preachy PSA.
Not everything works on "The E.N.D." On the second half of the record the melodies tend to grow weaker and the sound effects louder. Still, it has some seriously solid tracks and will continue to spawn hits for a long while. There is a limit to its success, but this is nevertheless the sound of a band anxious to forge new ground. Other groups may be phoning it in lately, but not The Black Eyed Peas.
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