Artist: Third Eye Blind Album: Out of the Vein (Warner Music Group)

I was all set to write off Third Eye Blind as washed up and shortly destined for the county fair circuit, sharing a stage with the likes of REO Speedwagon and Billy and the Beaters.

And make a few cracks about vocalist Stephan Jenkins' personal life following the same downward trajectory as that of his band (from dating Charlize Theron to Vanessa Carlton).

Then I began listening to the San Francisco-based band's third album and found that it was growing on me, in a nice sense, not like a fungus.

Out of the Vein doesn't have a real catchy single that jumps out at you, like the hummable Semi-Charmed Life from the band's first album, which makes this album a little more difficult to access. What it does have is a lot of intelligent, well crafted songs.

Jenkins proves himself to be very good with lyrics, spinning vivid three-minute stories that do very well in capturing a specific time and place. One of the best examples of this is Forget Myself, which has to be about Jenkins' romantic dalliance with Theron. And Crystal Baller is probably the closest the album has to a single.

Jenkins does not, however, always hit the mark, such as the love-in-a-time-of-anti-globalization-protests track Danger, which starts with the line I met you at the barricade and then gets really silly.

Having said that, Out of the Vein is intelligent rock music that requires repeated listenings before fully exposing its charms. -- David Eyerly