2.5 out of 5 stars

Pete Yorn is one of those artists to me who just can't seem to live up to or recreate the greatness of his debut album. In 2001, he crafted the superb Musicforthemorningafter, which at the time seemed to announce the arrival of a unique new singer/songwriter talent to watch out for. Since that time, he's crafted two underwhelming follow ups that were nowhere close to being fantastic and the last three years have actually seen Yorn go into seclusion except for the few random live dates here or there. Back and Forth marks Yorn's return to the fold and with super producers Mike Mogis and Rick Rubin in tow, Yorn seems to be making a valiant effort to at least have a supporting cast around him to return him to his once and former glory. It's too bad that once again the final results just don't quite reach his past excellence.

Mogis (whose had success with Indie darlings such as Bright Eyes, Cursive and Rilo Kiley) and Rubin (Beastie Boys, Jay-Z, Johnny Cash) would seem to be the kind of producers that would ensure that Yorn wouldn't be able to do anything but craft an album full of classics, but instead they let Yorn ramble on for 10 tracks that all have the same style of sleepy melancholy to them. And I do mean sleepy, I dozed off twice while listening to this album and had to keep going back through every mundane moment I had originally missed. Every track has that one and the same type sound where every song starts to sound like the last and even upbeat numbers such as "Last Summer" go by with no more than a meh feeling from me. It doesn't help either that Yorn is still writing cringe inducing lyrics such as "I Googled you in quotes, got no results. I never learned how you had died, but I knew how you had lived" which is on full display on the awful track "Social Development Dance." Yorn is set to release two more full-lengths by the end of this year including a duets disc with actress Scarlett Johansson. Here's hoping this ends up being the worst out of the bunch.