HOPING AGAINST HOPE

Hoping Against Hope finds Thinking Plague in their third album in a row of failing to make an impression on me. Solid though I consider their work up to In Extremis to be, their albums since then have felt a little too much like regurgitating the same-ol' Thinking Plague sound as developed on those albums rather than appreciably developing it further. For some fans, that might be exactly what you want; the band can hardly be accused of betraying their roots if they never develop away from them, after all. At the same time, the lack of novelty wears on me and I find my attention wandering whenever I try to listen to the album.