'Tuned In' review: Multi-producers dress SafetySuit in layers

"These Times" by SafetySuit

“These Times,” SafetySuit (Universal Republic)

SafetySuit may be fractured on “These Times,” but its heart is in the right place.

The Nashville-based band has been in new-music limbo since the release of 2008’s “Life Left To Go,” which spawned the single “Stay.” “These Times” is loaded with similar radio-friendly songs, though they don’t fit together for a satisfying whole, a side effect of multiple producers.

For instance, OneRepublic’s Ryan Tedder is behind the boards for “Let Go,” a potential hit warmed by electronic glow, a killer hook and a romantic vibe that finds frontman Doug Brown growling, “I don’t know what happened/I guess you finally got me.”

Although SafetySuit is technically a rock band (by today’s definition), “Let Go” has a boy-band, pop feel reinforced by lesser, Howard Benson-produced songs “One Time” and “Stranger (Say It)” (the latter of which injects a bombastic guitar break to further muddy the picture). However, Benson also dresses SafetySuit in the uplifting (if overearnest) conventional modern rock of “Believe” and the stadium-suitable-ballad title track.

Then there’s the team of Espen Lind and Amund Bjorklund (aka Espionage), who produced the punchy “Get Around This” and the wistful, country lilting “Things to Say” that perfectly fits Brown’s rasp, even if it sounds like an entirely different band from the rest of “These Times.”

SafetySuit also tries its own hand at production, failing at the sludgy “Staring at It” that volleys hooks into a vacuum of untethered sound.

Nevertheless, the unapologetically mainstream group seems sincere, the refrains are infectious, and Brown is magnetic. So the scattershot production is just a minor diversion.

Rating (five possible): 3-1/2

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