This is just embarrassing. Rather, it’s unfortunate. All About Chemistry acts as a sober reminder of the effects that ego, money and time can have on a band. Semisonic, or more specifically, lead singer Dan Wilson, has become selfish and overindulgent in what he perceives as a concept album. A misguided attempt at expressing love through art, the album is dead weight with no substance.

Wilson’s lyrics are painfully sappy: “All my life I’ve been looking for the perfect mate / And when I finally found the one, it was almost too late.” The music parallels these sentiments on the same base level. It’s elevator music with vocal expressions. The album produces a slack-jawed mouth and a smirk that can only mean that this is one big mess of a joke. But it is serious. When asked in a recent interview about the choice and use of various electronic sounds, the band gave this response: “It’s a science thing, because we’re talking about chemistry.” Everything about this whole project just hurts.

Anyone expecting pop-rock like its 1998 hit, “Closing Time,” will be disappointed and downright shocked at what this band has come up with. The members could have done so many things, established themselves as musicians and just as Semisonic. Producing its own record really killed a pretty good thing. It’s going to be hard to gain redemption after this disaster.