After the success of “Hanging by a Moment” in 2001, you would think Lifehouse would have had their fun as a one-hit wonder and called it quits. Not quite the case. Their self-titled junior album is a collection of pop hooks that surpass the pathetic desperate-for-a-hit productions you would expect from a band with so much time away from the limelight.

“Making this record was totally nonchalant,” says drummer Rick Woolstenhulme, There was practically no preproduction. We just showed up, put the mics up and played the songs. It was so simple.” Woolstenhulme also credits their producer John Alagia, who helped the band to not over think it, “Because of that, this is the best representation of what we do when we’re just being ourselves. We love the way this record sounds. It’s fat and full, but it’s not cluttered; you can hear all the instruments.”

Love is not a prevalent subject on the album, but it does appear on their first single, “You and Me”. “You know when you start to fall for someone but you’re not sure if they return the feeling?” questions singer-guitarist Jason Wade, “You could be in a room full of people, but all you see is her. It’s like being in the eye of a hurricane – everything else is swirling around you, but you’re totally fixated on this person, and you’re wondering, ‘Does she feel it, too?’” It’s easily one of more radio-friendly songs in the set of good songs.

Tracks like “Blind” and “Better Luck”, still focus on issues Jason Wade dealt with as a kid, “My parents split when I was 12, and on some level I’m still dealing with it. I can face it now in a way I couldn’t then. Sometimes I wonder if I’m ever gonna stop writing about stuff like that, but your scars become a part of you.”

After cutting down the twelve songs from a selection of more than fifty tracks, the album was produced in a record five weeks at Alagia’s home studio on the Chesapeake Bay.

Wade isn’t too concerned on the success of the album, “This record succeeds because we put no emphasis on what it was suppose to be; it’s just us, whatever that is, which is partly why we just called it Lifehouse. We didn’t think too much, and as it turns out, we do our best work when we’re not thinking.”

For a band who didn’t really “think too much” on their album, it came out pretty decent. I was expecting more of a I-can-rock-out-just-like-Creed attitude, but it didn’t come, which left me both surprised and relieved.