alan mckay of musicriot.co.uk concurs that "with great session players, tasteful (bordering on minimal) fm radio-friendly arrangements and lyrics dealing with american themes [plus] a singer with a plaintive high tenor voice" it's obvious that "the album was aimed squarely at the american market". mckay further opines: "the theme running through the album was the failure of the american dreammatthews picked out songs about the party set, car fanatics and sports groupies to form the backbone of this album. it's a melancholy album because it looks back at the unfulfilled promise of american lives in the same way that bob seger did with songs like 'hollywood nights" and 'night moves' and jackson browne did with 'the pretender'."