As much as they would like us to forget the five-year hiatus, the Backstreet Boys have been gone and musical landscape has changed.  No longer are there a billion screaming girls lining up outside MTV’s Time Square studios waiting to see the next dancing fivesome.  To their credit, the Backstreet Boys have grown up and have moved past the hoopla that surrounded them in the late '90s and made them zillionaires. 

After 2000’s relatively successful album Black and Blue, the Boys took some time off, not because they wanted to -- but maybe because they had to.  Group bad boy AJ McLean went through a much-publicized battle with drug and alcohol abuse and is now sober.  Other group members took the time to start families and focus on other business ventures.  With all that behind them, the Boys have returned with a new album and musical direction.  

Never Gone is deliberately a pop/rock album.  The group has partly steered away from the pop formula they cultivated in the 90s and gone the direction of artists like Rob Thomas, Matchbox 20 and Five for Fighting.  Lead single, “Incomplete” still highlights the group’s vocal ability, but gone are the playful lyrics, replaced by serious vernacular of love.  Its haunting piano backdrop, performed by group member Kevin Richardson, adds to its mysterious feel. 

“Weird World,” written and produced by Five for Fighting’s John Ondrasik adds some credibility to the opus.  It’s playful, yet though provoking.  The Boys still team up with longtime producer Max Martin on “Just Want You To Know” and “Lose it All.”  “Siberia” is a very cool sounding track, disguising a long lost love as a far away land.  Its is clear to the average listener that Nick Carter and McLean are the most comfortable in this new found skin.  Their voices scream above others as they man majority of the lead vocals.  Tracks highlighted by Brian Littrell tend to venture into familiar Backstreet territory meaning sincere, soft-spoken ballads.

Abraham Kuranga