The Hush Sound’s “Goodbye Blues” lacked a variety of songs and voices but maintained a powerful upbeat sound.

Before getting into why the band’s repetitiveness made this album mediocre, I just had to find out what was up with it.

After the quartet’s second album “Like Vines,” they hit a fork in their relationships with one another. The band mates wrote their feelings through this struggle and waited to part until a glitter of hope from fans brought the band mates back to one another.

The band consists of vocalist and pianist Greta Salpeter, vocalist and guitarist Bob Morris, bass player Chris Faller and drummer Darren Wilson.

“We realized that we were part of something greater than all these little problems we had,” Salpeter said.

With a newfound sense of unity, The Hush Sound got to work in a Hollywood studio September 2007.

The draining, repetitive and never-ending cycle of love songs in the third album almost returned me to my dramatic high school days with boys. Luckily, the familiar, Panic At the Disco feel and upbeat piano, string and drum work drowned all the lyrics.

The single “Honey” annoyed me lyrically because Salpeter sung about blaming her lover for her troubles. “You’ve got a dark heart / you’ve got a cold kiss” continues with “you are my love, you are my love” that contradicts each other. The song does this throughout.

However, the beat, which consisted of bouncy piano, great string work and consistent drumming, is catchy and fun to groove to.

“Medicine Man,” which has been featured on the television show “House,” is radio friendly and should have been the single. Salpeter once again sang it, and Morris sung ooohs and wooos. It’s very upbeat. Starting with head-bobbing drums, it climaxed with Salpeter’s powerful piano work.

I started to worry that this was no longer the band I remembered because it had too much of Salpeter and not enough of Morris’s voice.

Salpeter’s piano and vocals overshadowed Morris’s contributions, even when he only had a few lines. One of the more memorable lines in the album, which I can’t stop singing repeatedly, is from “The Boys Are Too Refined.” It’s when Morris sang “always quick to follow.”

Several songs later, I finally hear a full song by Morris.

“As You Cry” is refreshing but once again contains heartbreaking lyrics. “As you cry / I wanna lie / Say I love you so / Darling even though I don’t. There’s no easy way / To ease the pain.”

Not only was “Goodbye Blues” repetitive, it lacked collaboration from Salpeter and Morris like the song “Wine Red” from “Like Vines.”

Other things that made the album less enjoyable were the intro and interlude “Six.” Just as I was enjoying Morris, they forced a break in my relaxation. The elevator-music break was unnecessary and painful.

The piano-infested intro didn’t introduce the rest of the album and didn’t have a point. Well, unless the point was to tell us that it’s Salpeter’s album.

The Hush Sound is currently on the 2008 Honda Civic Tour with Panic At the Disco.

Deur Julie Tcha can be reached at [email protected]