Hellogoodbye’s third album Everything is Debatable is a very interesting album. It doesn’t take any prior knowledge of the band to enjoy, but getting to know where the band came from gives some insight as to how they got to their current sound.

Their debut album Zombies! Aliens! Vampires! Dinosaurs!, released in 2006, is a catchy pop album that is very electronic heavy and has some influences from synth pop. Lead by their hit single “Here (In Your Arms),” they were able to gain a bit of a following.

Their sophomore effort in 2010, Would It Kill You?, was a departure from the sound that had made them popular four years back. The band took more of an indie rock approach to the album and replaced a lot of the synthesizer with acoustic guitars.

With their latest release, they seemed to have combined the sounds of their first two albums, and I’m happy to report that the marriage of these two sounds works very well.

The first few tracks of the album seem to be more in tune with their first album and come off as very catchy and pleasant songs. With the first track of the song, “…And Everything Becomes a Blur,” you are instantly hit with some synthesizers followed by some acoustic guitar, which set the tone for the rest of the album.

The lead single from the album, “(Everything Is) Debatable,” is the strong point of the album for me. It is one of the more electronic heavy tracks from the album, and it is very akin to the sound produced by bands like Passion Pit, which is a very welcome sound from Hellogoodbye. The sound fits them perfectly.

The rest of the album from there on is a mixed bag of different sounds as the band continues to experiment. Track five of the album, “Summer of the Lily Pond,” has a very big band feel with the presence of trumpets. It sounds like lead singer Forrest Kline was trying to do his best take on Michael Bublé, and it worked for him.

Track seven of the album, “I Don’t Worry (As Much As I Should),” is more a ballad by Forrest, and the song sounds like it should be on an album from The Postal Service. The rest of the album onward from this sounds like generic indie rock tracks with a slower pace and are not that memorable.

In the end, I enjoyed my time with this album. I like hearing the band experiment with some new sounds. I can tell that as the album went on it was more influenced by their second album than their first, and I wish it had been the other way around.  However, I don’t feel like that should take away from the strong points of this album, which definitely deserve some recognition.

I give this album a 7.5 out of 10.