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You have to remember: optimism doesn't always have to be cliche, and while the band struggles lyrically ("Stars and Stripes" has Robert Schwartzman trying to imitate Joni Mitchell or the Byrds), they still know their strengths.
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Alternative PressUptempo songs are memorable and hummable, but slower tunes can be repetitive and overly saccharine. [Jul 2010, p.127]
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Eureka lacks the same level of up-tempo explosiveness present in the previous records, but that could have just been the boisterous nature of early, early youth.
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Eureka finds the guys stuck between pining for the golden days and looking toward the future, resulting in a track list that's sometimes tuneful and often haphazard.
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Apart from a few strange detours, Eureka finds Rooney in purgatory, where they bang out some merely-there three-minute pop songs about relationships that fade out over repeated choruses.
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Robert Schwartzman's best asset is his gift for breezy melodies, but Eureka's lyrics sag.
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If the band were as serious about writing great pop songs as they were about the recording process behind great pop songs, Eureka might have made for an effective career relaunch for Rooney instead of another underwhelming effort.
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Despite the mildly pleasant pop tracks scattered throughout, the choking dissonance makes Eureka an incongruent mess.
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It appears Rooney's dream record is a lot like every other one the band has made--melodic, upbeat, mightily derivative--except with less catchiness to grasp onto.