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There's a little short "Intro" that sounds like the last song, "Candy Carol" put through the "When Johnny Comes Marching Home" wringer. Weird, but so short as to be somewhat pointless. "Turn the World" is the first real song, and lyrically it's pretty cheesy. Sonically, it's a little cliched as well, and while it's not bad, it's not really a stand-out either. The same is true of "Quiver" which tries to capture some of the wide-eyed innocence of the past, but only succeeds in sounding like the song itself was written by a child instead of from a child's point of view. "Butterfly" is much better as a song, but the lyrics sound, again, more like something a child would write, rather than an adult skillfully capturing a child's point of view. "Sunny Day" is the first really good song here, although it's different, having Ted featured on the vocals again. However, it harks back to the strengths that made prior Book of Love albums good, with atmospheric sounds and lyrics and emotive performance. The extremely short "Flower Parade" is odd, and much like "Intro" serves very little purpose, except to try and add a tiny bit of atmosphere. "Wall Song" is a nice instrumental, but a little too dark to sound right for the album here. The hit song "Alice Everyday" is next, and it's the next really good song, with typical Susan vocals. The lyrics are different - instead of a girl's romantic fantasy, we have a very young girl's daily life, as she recites her friends' names. However, this theme seems to be more or less consistent, with many songs sounding like little kid's reading primers, based on the lyrics. "Counting the Rosaries," is next, which features guest backing vocals in Latin from a catholic priest who appears to be a relative of Lauren Roselli. The theme is a little different, yet compatible, and the song is actually fun and dancey, even though it describes the catholic process for repentance. The next two songs are simply bad, "Miss Melancholy" and "Orange Flip." Both have ridiculous lyrics that sound like stuff I haven't read since first grade (actually, I have little kids, so I guess it has been a little more recently than that...) and the sounds aren't particularly well crafted as well. They're neither catchy nor dancey. But it can't ever been said that when Book of Love comes to their final song, which is always the title song, it appears, they don't go all out. "Candy Carol" is a little bit different than previous title tracks in that it isn't a dance song, but it's a beautiful work of art, and it actually manages to capture the childhood feeling that they seemed to be struggling to find with nearly every other song. The italian portions of the lyrics are particularly appropriate, since they highlight the exotic feel of a child's dreams.
Overall, this album was even rockier than Lullaby but it still has it's excellent songs to bring up the rest of the album. Unfortunately, there are more bad and mediocre songs here, so the album suffers in comparison with anything they've done previously.
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