Editor's Note: For the last nine years, Splendid's reviews have been edited pretty aggressively -- for grammar, punctuation, spelling, usage, accuracy, coherence and thoroughness of argument, and even adherence to "house" style. There are two reasons for this. First of all, I've always believed that for online magazines to succeed, they must offer the highest quality content possible. Second, how can you trust a publication to recommend music if its writers can't tell the difference between there, their and they're? That said, editing is extremely time consuming, and on many occasions over the last nine years, I've wondered what would happen if I took a week off and let the reviews go through completely untouched. Long story short: this week, from December 5th through December 10th, is that week, and the review you're about to read is untouched by editorial hands. Will this new (and very temporary) hands-off policy make a difference? Will you even notice? We'll see...

After getting the boot from their label after their second album -- the one that didn't include "Teenage Dirtbag" -- flopped, Wheatus licked the wounds, regained their focus, and pounded out Too Soon Monsoon. In addition to sporting a grainier sonic than the band's earlier records, Too Soon Monsoon marks an adjustment in perspective that's perfectly understandable for a one-hit wonder gone bust: instead of jabbing us with pointed nineties irony, this album pines for a more pleasant past. "Something Good"'s That Dog chorus hearkens back to the alt-rock climate in which Wheatus could potentially score a string of charting singles, and its drawling guitar licks reach even further back with its staple seventies southern rock phrasing. We get another open letter to the giants of AOR in "In the Melody", a trifling lament for the days when rock used to value melody that mirrors Rush's "Spirit of the Radio" lyrically, musically and vocally. As if the song's flimsy rhetoric don't hurt it enough (How do Wheatus account for the success of pop acts like The Shins and The New Pornographers if rock isn't melodic anymore?), Brendan Brown's cringe-worthy Geddy Lee impersonation might completely destroy his argument in its own right. And like any piece of contemporary rose-colored hindsight, Too Soon Monsoon milks 9/11: in "Hometown", Brown sings "I'd trade all my sunshines for twin towers to hide behind / And find you there". The song's constant focus on self and personal problems limits its effectiveness, placing the Twin Towers in the same sphere of fuzzy nostalgia as Journey and "Teenage Dirtbag".