Big, bruising hooks lacerate the up-tempo tunes and massage the ballads on this exceptional sophomore release. Boone's lyrics speak directly to listeners on matters as personal as loneliness and anger at being misunderstood, yet by never lapsing into the kind of literalism that can trivialize the message, and by setting expressions of self-doubt to lighter-waving, hard-hitting choruses. In songs like "Wide Awake," he creates an impression that even the most intimate problems can be overcome. Assertive textures and Marc Slutsky's aggressive drumming meld with tightly written, compact musical structures; the result is a marriage of studio polish with raw live feel, and in that sense an ideal hard rock-pop hybrid.